My story
Empathy, resilience and self-criticism
What it means to be both doctor and patient — and why I keep going.
I know what it is like to be a patient myself. That experience changed how I look at care — and it is why empathy is my starting point.
In the clinic, in research and in teaching I keep coming back to one question: what does the patient gain from this?
Looking for the full biography, honours and doctoral students?
Biography & honours
Learning to walk again
After serious complications I had to learn to walk again. In this clip I practise with the help of a therapist. Being a patient myself showed me how much uncertainty, patience and support recovery can demand. I take that experience with me in my work as a doctor.
Resilience and perseverance
Persistence helped me develop PI-RADS and ferumoxtran MRI through years of resistance. When I feel, think and know that something can help patients, I keep looking for a way forward. Sometimes I choose a different direction from the majority. Over the years I have learned that perseverance also means listening. Others may show me where I need to adjust course. And when I am wrong, I want to be able to admit it — openly, too.
“Forget all the reasons it won’t work and believe the one reason that it will.”
Euro, Ego, Empathy (E3)
My personal reflection on what drives people in medicine — and on what should drive it.
Euro
What makes it possible?
Resources make research and innovation possible. The benefit for the patient decides the direction.
Empathy
What does the patient gain from this?
Listening, understanding and acting from the person behind the disease. This is the centre.
Ego
Where does ambition lead?
Ambition can drive progress. Collaboration and self-criticism help aim it well.
My learning cycle
Unaware incompetent
Aware incompetent
Aware competent
Unaware incompetent
Experience and conviction can create new blind spots. Then the cycle starts again.
The core: stay critical of yourself.
In my own words
In my talk for medical students and at SABI 2026 I speak about vulnerability, the patient's experience, empathy and resilience.
What I want to pass on to future doctors
A talk for medical students about vulnerability, the patient's experience and my three E's: Euro, Ego and Empathy.
- Original title
- Kick-off nieuw curriculum - Jelle Barentsz
- Occasion
- Kick-off of the new medical curriculum, Radboudumc
- Language
- Dutch
- Duration
- approx. 19:57
Academic Resilience and a Second Chance for the Tiny Iron Particles and Me
A personal talk about resilience in academic life and the long road of the tiny iron particles used in lymph-node MRI. The official programme lists it as “Academic Resilience and the Story of Very Tiny Iron Particles”.
- Occasion
- SABI 2026 Annual Meeting — TED-style session
- Year
- 2026
- Language
- English
Looking back on my career
In my farewell lecture “Het beeld van de zorg” I connect my work as a doctor, researcher and teacher with the question of what good care means for the patient.
Watch my farewell lecture