Hi steemians! For those of you who are wondering, yes that's me and my girlfriend next to the Colorado river at the bottom of the Grand Canyon :)
The Grand Canyon is one of those amazing places we had the privilege of visiting during one of our holidays. In my opinion getaways like that are essential as a PhD student/postdoc/resident in medicine/banjo-player to keep a fresh mind and go that extra mile the rest of the year.
Who am I
I am a cryptocurrency/blockchain enthousiast and hodler, medical scientist, rheumatologist, craft beer lover and homebrewer, world-explorer, very proud father of a beautiful and a bit stubborn (must be from her mother ;)...) little girl and social-media shunner. Social media never was my thing and I must admit that I joined Steemit by using my girlfriends Facebook account. Sorry for that fraud but I also think that access to Steemit is unnecessary barred for those of us not very "social". Steemit drew my attention due to it's innovative character and potential to fundamentally change various communication platforms.
To verify me just check my Linkedin account and this is my publication list: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=wenink+m.
And.... oke, here is a photo with a barely readable written sign ;)
Before you say it, yes, babysitting while your partner is writing a research paper is wonderfull but can be very exhausting (for the both of us). But then again it provides me with some time to write this down.
The road to here
Growing up as a young boy in a small rural village in the Netherlands my dream was to travel the world, explore new civilizations and discover cures for al kinds of diseases in the amazone. As it usually goes I did not become this super Indiana Jones :(. However, life gave me a lot more than I could have hoped for back then. In high school I read books and programmed in Basic being a typical nerd at the time. In college this shifted to lifting weights and partying enough for three lifetimes.
At that time I had zero self esteem, no confidence and felt depressed due to acne. After a few years in college I finally found the strength to do something about my situation and started with isotretinoin treatment. This eventually cured the acne and I started to gain some self confidence. In this period I had finished my two studies and started my PhD.
In my perspective doing a PhD was great! You get paid to be curious and explore things and don't have the responsibility to procure money. I had luck with a supervisor who gave me a lot of freedom and this was just what I needed. During this time I also met my smart, kind and lovely girlfriend with whom I travel all over the world. Examples of great countries to visit are:
Morocco
Peru
South Africa
After these glorious years of freedom I had to start with my Internal Medicine residency which was actual hell in the beginning. I had been out of the clinics for five years and didn't even remember what potassium does. After the first year I finally had it under control and started to miss research. I began supervising students in the lab and when my previous boss asked me to start in another hospital and set-up a new research line in the field of rheumatic diseases I jumped at the chance.
Research
The research line I set-up concerned psoriatic arthritis. Psoriatic arthritis is a disease in which multiple sites of the body get inflamed most notably the skin (psoriasis is a skin disease with red scaly plaques), joints and enthesis (tissue which attaches the tendon from muscles to bone). In most places in the world there is a lack of communication between dermatologists who treat the skin and rheumatologists who treat the musculoskeletal involvement. This lack of communication leads to under-treated and under-recognized disease with decreased quality of life and prognosis. We set-up a new outpatient clinic in which all psoriasis patients were screened for joint involvement and started research into new biomakers and therapeutic targets.
During this time I found out about bitcoin and all the other blockchain based options kindling my enthusiasm for decentralised applications.
And then I finally became a full-fledged rheumatologist and had to go my own way.... Luckily I got a job offer at a well-acknowledged hospital to start as a rheumatologist and senior scienstist and that's why I put all this "on paper".
Goal
In my opinion research should be driven by questions and problems stated by patients and society and new research ideas should be trialed and tested in different fora containing people from different walks of life. Steemit seems ideal for this with a great collection of intelligent people!
By posting my own new and original research ideas I hope to disseminate knowledge and with your help hone research (and my wording) so patients around the world can profit.
Looking forward to read your ideas! Do you also believe Steemit can become a usefull platform for this?