The Academic Medical Center (AMC)
The Academic Medical Center (AMC) is probably
the most well-known hospital in the Netherlands. As one of the eight
university medical centers in the Netherlands, the AMC is among the top medical
centers in the world. As a university medical center, the AMC has three
principal tasks. Its primary task is, of course, the treatment of patients. In
addition the AMC carries out a great deal of medical research, in other words:
research into the development of illnesses and disorders, and how to identify,
treat and prevent them. The AMC’s third task is to provide medical education:
this includes training students to become doctors or medical informatics
specialists, and training doctors to become specialists, family doctors or
occupational physicians.
The AMC was founded in 1983, when two hospitals
from the Amsterdam city center, the ‘Wilhelmina Gasthuis’ and the ‘Binnengasthuis’,
merged with medical faculty of the University of Amsterdam. Five years later,
the Emma Children’s Hospital also became a part of the new university hospital.
In addition to hospital departments and faculty departments, the AMC is also
home to the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (an institute of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, KNAW), the medical department of the
Royal Tropical Institute, and the Academic Psychiatric Center.
The area around the main buildings provides room
for a number of spin-offs: small research companies that have emerged from the
AMC, such as Arthrogen and Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT). A number of
independent medical institutes, including IATEC Clinical Trial Services, Pharm
Access and – the latest addition – the Spinoza Center for Neuroimaging have
also been set up here. In collaboration with the City of Amsterdam, the AMC is
stimulating the development of a Medical Business Park: a whole range of innovative
businesses and research institutes in the field of healthcare, bio sciences and
life sciences. This concentration of expertise and skill forms an excellent
breeding ground for the multidisciplinary collaboration which is one of the key
strengths underlying the AMC’s patient care system.
For more information about the AMC, click here
                                        |
