Coordinator of Parasitology research at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam
Besides the well known medical professions such as physician, medical specialist or researcher, there are many other interesting career possibilities in (global) health care. With these short interviews we want to introduce different, interesting, sometimes unknown, professions to you.
Let’s introduce
Dr. Henk Schallig, coordinator of Parasitology research at the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. He leads a research group currently comprising 15 people, who are working on parasitic diseases, mainly malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis, both in the Netherlands and in developing countries.
How would you describe your career path?
Not well planned in advance. I started studying to become a teacher, but became more and more interested in doing research. After receiving my PhD at the Biology Faculty of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam on schistosomiasis, I worked at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and Immunology of Utrecht University. My main subject was vaccine development against gastro-intestinal parasites.
After a short time in the industrial world, I spend my “golden handshake” mainly in Thailand. Back in Holland I applied for a position at the Royal Tropical Institute, where I have been working now for almost 8 years… a long time. Maybe time for a change, again?
What does your schedule for a week look like?
No week is the same. Last week I was in Paramaribo for the kick off of our leishmanisasis reseach programme. Next week, I will have to catch up with a lot of paper work, discuss results obtained by my group at the lab, report some management issues and finalize the budget for the leishmaniasis project. Then I have to prepare for a trip to Burkina faso to monitor the progress of one of our malaria projects on drug resistance.
What would you like to achieve in your job?
We want to contribute to better health for people living in developing countries. In particular, by making tools available which allow local doctors to make the right diagnosis and give appropriate medicines.
What do you like most about your job?
Working with many different people under very different circumstances. In Mbita, a small village in the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya, we managed to see 1 200 patients and treated around 300 for malaria in only six weeks and with limited resources. That was very rewarding.
What would you tell a student who wants to head in this direction?
Students may have the impression that it contains a lot of pleasant travelling to exotic places, but it is hard work, sometimes under difficult conditions and, unfortunately, often there is not enough funding. I advise students to get enough practical experience: work in a laboratory, see as many patients with tropical diseases as possible, and, most importantly, spend time working in a disease endemic country in the tropics.
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