The United Nations

"Start with a dream. Maybe a dream that is personal and small, but worth doing. Then dream a bigger dream. Keep dreaming until your dreams seem impossible to achieve. Then you’ll know you’re on the right track. Then you’ll know you’re ready to conjure up a dream big enough to define your future and perhaps your generation’s future."  Vance Coffman, Business executive

As I look around this room of students I am amazed at the diversity. We all want to practice medicine, but that is where our similarities end.  We have students from all walks of life, all past  histories, many nations. Most of us are from the U.S., but we have members from Africa, other Caribbean islands, mainland Netherlands, the UK, India, Pakistan, and South America.  This fact alone adds an element of the learning process that cannot be measured. I know that this is not a unique phenomenon even in the states, but for us it is a chance to experience a different way of thinking. When you add that to our Dutch environment, and mostly non-U.S. instructors, the synergy is almost electric. This is not only an international medical school, it is an international education. And that can only be a good thing.