Maastricht University has a vacancy for a PhD candidate at the faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences in a close collaboration between the division Gastroenterology of the MUMC+ and NUTRIM, School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism and the Clinical Data Science group.
The PhD position is embedded in the FRESH project: “Federated Data Driven Decision Support for Crohn’s Disease”. FRESH is a unique project that aims to create a decision support system that will aid shared decision making of healthcare professionals and people with the invalidating chronic bowel disease Crohn’s disease patients. In this project, the successful candidate will be responsible for clinician and patient oriented activities and the development and testing of the decision support system that will be developed. The candidate will work closely with clinicians and patients to clarify their wants and needs for this decision support system through qualitative research methodologies like interviews and focus groups. The candidate will also be responsible for the clinical evaluation of the eventual product in the form of a clinical trial.
Crohn's disease (CD) is a lifelong disorder of the gut with a heterogeneous clinical presentation and treatment response. Personalised risk assessment is not always and patients preferences are rarely taken into account when selecting a treatment strategy. Randomised controlled trials failed to improve this strategy because the included population is not representative of the Dutch population. We hypothesise that clinical decision support tools (CDSS) tools based on qualitative research and real world outcome data can decrease delay in selecting the optimal treatment, thereby preventing prescription of ineffective drugs and decrease decisional regret.
Our unique multicentre IBD-network developed health information systems collecting clinical, lifestyle and psychosocial outcomes of a representative samples of the Dutch CD population in routine care.
The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary team of health care professionals, patients, computer scientists, medical physicists and medical informaticians, PhD students, software engineers, post-doctoral researchers and private partners.

Specific:
You have a master’s degree in medicine, health sciences, or equivalent and have good communication skills. Experience with qualitative research and clinical trials are a plus.

Generic:
You are an open-minded, motivated, independent, result-oriented researcher with ownership who is able to take initiative and takes pride in their work. You are fluent in both Dutch and English, both in speech and writing. We are looking for a researcher with a special interest in health care research and motivated to build a scientific career in the area of basic and translational research. You are a team player and will closely collaborate with other members of the FRESH consortium.

Fixed-term contract: 48 months.

The full-time position is offered for 4 years (1+3), with a yearly evaluation.

Your salary will be € 2,541 gross per month in the first year up to € 3,247 gross per month in the fourth year according to the PhD-candidate salary scale. On top of this, there is an 8% holiday and an 8.3% year-end allowance.
In addition to good primary employment conditions, UM also offers an attractive package of secondary employment conditions.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website www.maastrichtuniversity.nl > About UM > Working at UM.

Maastricht University

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 22,000 students and about 5,000 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. 
For more information, visit www.maastrichtuniversity.nl.

The division of gastroenterology-hepatology employs 14 consultants who care for patients with gastrointestinal disorders. To improve health from the patient perspective we work in interdisciplinary teams that promote transmural and integrated care.

Research by the Department of Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases of the MUMC takes place in the research school NUTRIM, School of Nutrition and Translational Research in Metabolism. NUTRIM contributes to health promotion and personalized medicine through research into the role of lifestyle and metabolism on the human body. This contributes to the development of targeted interventions based on nutrition, exercise and medication. For this project, there is close collaboration with Maastro's Clinical Data Science group and with DataHub, MUMC+, Radboud UMC, UMCG and our private consortium partners. Together we take work towards sustainable healthcare of the future.

The Clinical Data Science group is a computer science focused department embedded within a clinical environment (MAASTRO Clinic and Maastricht UMC). The Clinical Data Science group focuses on three main research areas: building global data sharing infrastructures; applying machine learning to build models from these data; and, using these models to improve healthcare.