Every year, the NVTH (Dutch association of thrombosis and hemostasis) organizes a symposium and a course for PhD students on a specific topic within the field. This year, the topic of the course was bleeding disorders. Normally this course would have been given in 2020 in Koudekerke, but due to Covid-19 restrictions, the course was postponed until last week. Due to those restrictions, the course was also fully online for the first time.
Many leading figures on bleeding disorders from the Netherlands gave a presentation on their research. The talks were given in the morning and ranged from pathophysiological mechanisms to diagnosis and treatment. The course was attended by many PhDs throughout the Netherlands and Symphony was well represented!
PhD students were also asked to work on an assignment during the three-day course. It was our task to make a diagnostic flowchart for patients with a bleeding phenotype who could not be diagnosed using standard tests. Many groups presented their results using information from the presentation given in the mornings or from their own research.
All in all the course was very informative and a great networking opportunity despite the restrictions of meeting online.
Sebastiaan Laan (PhD WP12)