Jérôme - a Brit with a Mauritian background - chose to come to Maastricht for the master’s programme in Global Health. “I graduated in Biomedical Science in London, back in 2011. After my bachelor’s degree I started travelling and working in voluntary programmes. I ended up in Thailand for a brainstorm symposium by the United Nations. I then moved to Spain for some time and did research in the scientific industry.

Back in London, I started working in a hospital in diagnostic medicine and developed an interest in infectious diseases. By then I’d also joined a charity that focused on public health promotion in the community.

And then the Ebola crisis emerged. In the UK, the National Health Service put out a call for people with relevant skills who were then trained and supported to go and work in the frontline of the crisis. I went to Sierra Leone on two deployments with an NGO. That put my life into perspective and I wanted to do more. I was looking for a framework that would pull my experiences in Sierra Leone, my diagnostic career and my work for the health promotion charity together. This master’s programme in Global Health is simply just right for me at this point in my life.

My next step is to gain experience in other skills than working in the field as a practitioner. I would like to do an internship at a headquarters location of e.g. the World Health Organization or International Medical Corps and afterwards start a career there as an influencer and creator of new plans and ideas. Although with my French language skills I also see myself working in Central Africa in one of the French-speaking countries there, where there is still a lot of endemic disease.”