Welcome to the Principles of Technical Medicine website.

This website gives the outline of a movement that is working to better visualise what Technical Medicine is, how it came into being and, most importantly, its place in and contribution to the medical world adding to the established knowledge and expertise already present in medicine and surgery.

Basically, we want to describe the principles (see below) of the discipline and practices now emerging in several Dutch clinical settings.

With an extensive group of contributors we are in a creative process, with as a first step, this website. Over time, more pieces will be added and existing ones expanded until it gives a full picture of Technical Medicine. So keep an eye on this website to stay informed about the latest updates.

The Principles

Last May 22th our chief-editor Prof. dr. Jouke Tamsma gave an inaugurational lecture about “Principles of Technical Medicine in Clinical Practice”. During this lecture, he gave a extensive description of the principles and the impact of Technical Medicine on the medical world. His full presentation can be found here (in Dutch).

Visualisation of the Principles of Technical Medicine. The full descriptions of the principles are described below, and for more information have a look at the inaugurational lecture of Prof. dr. Jouke Tamsma (link above image).

After close collaboration with Technical Physicians, the core Principles of Technical Medicine have been defined as follows:

Technical medicine is an academic discipline.

Technology and Medicine are fully intertwined in Technical Medicine.

Technical Medical reasoning is driven by conceptual understanding of the human body and technology, and mathematical and scientific thinking to approach (patho)physiological processes.

Technical Medicine operates in/acts with a focus on direct patient care, with the primary goal to bear (joint) responsibility for the outcome of technical-medical solutions for the patient.

Technical Medicine is practiced by licensed professionals with independent authority for diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation in hands-on individual patient care.

Technical Medicine is driven by adaptive expertise leading to the creation of new knowledge, changes in behaviour or environment, technological innovations or a combination of these.

Design/ engineering approaches are used to solve clinical situations, resulting in innovation.

Technical medicine contributes to all dimensions of quality of care, defined as safety, efficiency, effectiveness and patient focus.

With a unique competency profile – as communicator, connector, collaborator, organizer, academic, professional and expert in technical medicine – the Technical Medical Professional is broadly employable across multiple medical domains.