My name is Mochamad Nur Ramadhani, a dentist from Bandung, Indonesia. I received the KIT Scholarship Fund for my master’s degree in International Health during 2019 to 2020 at the KIT Royal Tropical Institute, free University, Amsterdam. After my arrival in Amsterdam on September 2019, I learnt that one of the major donors of the scholarship contributing to my degree was the Marinus-Plantema Foundation, a foundation that promotes bilateral relationships between The Netherlands and Indonesia.
Since my bachelor’s degree in dental medicine, I had been interested in public health, international relations, health policy, and managing health projects. The reason is that being a dental health practitioner with international public health skills would enable health interventions to people in a broader scale, both national and international society. The pandemic situation in 2020 made my choice on International Health more prospective since I was able to share my thoughts based on the lecture to educate the Indonesian community.
I followed the Netherlands Course on Global Health and Tropical Medicine (NTC) course in the first four months which was the core course for the whole master’s program. After passing the course with a satisfactory mark in December 2019, I continued my study with the advance modules and started to work on the thesis. The advance modules I took was Health Policy and Financing, Control of Communicable and Non-communicable diseases, Epidemiological practice, Qualitative Research Methods, Human Resources of Health, and Rebuilding Disrupted Health System. My thesis title was “Determinants of access to dental health services for people with different types of disabilities in Indonesia”.
September 2020, the moment I finished my master thesis and prepared for returning back to Indonesia, my home country. Before the graduation on the 4th of September 2020, I had a warm conversation with Mr. Hans Blankvoort (The chairman of The Marinus-Plantema Foundation) at the Tropen Restaurant. Besides I thank him and the foundation for the financial support on my master study, I told him that my path to catch my dream for developing my country is still long and I still need his support by keeping contact to be able to communicate each other. As a souvenir, he gave me a present for my newborn baby.
Today, I live in Gorontalo Province, Sulawesi Island to continue my career. While I am waiting for the birth of my baby, I am working in a public health center in Gorontalo as a dentist and public health officer. I hope that soon I will be able to be admitted to a job that applies the knowledge I have learnt at KIT Royal Tropical Institute Amsterdam. My ultimate goal is working in the Ministry of Health of Indonesia and being an expert of International health representing Indonesia.