Dorien Zwart is the head of the department of General Practice at University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht). After beginning her career as a locum GP in late 1999, she has been a permanent GP in a group practice in De Bilt since 2002, and a practice owner since 2015. Within the department of General Practice, she has served since 1999 as an education developer, group instructor for GP training, and head of curriculum development. In 2011, she completed her PhD on reporting and learning from incidents in general practice. Since then, she has built a research portfolio focused on quality and safety in telephone triage, handover, pharmacotherapy, and innovations in cross-institutional care aimed at “optimal care.” A common thread in these multi-method studies is learning, improving, and collaborating across professional and organizational boundaries.

As a general practitioner at heart, I want to contribute to the foundation and development of our profession alongside daily patient care. The combination of practice and academia offers this opportunity and creates a wonderful synergy for me. Daily practice both inspires and adds perspective to academic work, and vice versa. Additionally, general practice – serving as the “first and last responder” for people’s medical concerns – deserves a strong presence in the academic medical field. Achieving this requires a strong connection between academic general practice and regular primary care. I feel responsible for both representing and bridging them together, and I am committed to these efforts.

As department head, Dorien is part of UNH and serves as Chair of UNH-R (Research), the collaborative research council of the departments of general practice and Nivel.