"I wasn’t sure whether wanted to be a pediatrician or a plastic surgeon, but now I figured it out: I wanna be a head and neck surgeon. I'm currently pursuing my training in Utrecht. During my PhD I researched rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft tissue tumor in children. There are four well-known treatments for this tumor, all of which are generally effective, but I wanted to understand whether these treatments had long-term effects. This had never been thoroughly investigated before. We observed that these children experienced various serious facial abnormalities later in life as a result of radiation treatment to the head. My study involved 200 patients who had been treated when they were children in 1993 or later, distributed across four hospitals in Amsterdam, London, Paris, and Florida. I spent six months in each of these centers, which was a very special experience, particularly due to the significant cultural differences. I attended gala dinners in London, had lunch with wine in Paris, and went straight from church to the shooting range in Florida. All the renowned physicians I worked with will also attend my thesis defense. We brought so many top doctors together that we felt we had to make the most of it. That's why we're organizing a large symposium before my defense, with all of them as speakers. But what spoke to me the most are the children I got to know: so vulnerable yet so resilient!"
Marinka Hol will defend her thesis on April 12.
Paediatric Head and Neck Rhabdomyosarcoma
prof. dr. L.E. Smeele & prof. dr. A.G. Becking
prof. dr. A. Bel & prof. dr. J.H.M. Merks & dr. T.J.J. Maal