{"id":132762,"date":"2021-11-12T15:04:18","date_gmt":"2021-11-12T14:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=132762"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:59","slug":"eur-student-yara-dixon-is-medical-student-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/11\/12\/eur-student-yara-dixon-is-medical-student-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"EUR student Yara Dixon is Medical Student of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yara Dixon won the Medical Student of the Year competition with her project focusing on heavy periods. Dixon is the first winner of this award and, as well as a cup, received 5,000 euro.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Medicine students helping out with language problems<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJan van der Ploeg<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Dixon couldn\u2019t be happier. \u201cI\u2019m speechless. I really didn\u2019t expect this at all,\u201d she stated on EM TV on Thursday morning. The competition focuses on medical students who are active in society. Dixon is delighted that this competition has created so much attention for this. \u201cMore and more students are active in society and I\u2019m really pleased about that. It\u2019s one of the things that makes a doctor a good doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>

Yara Dixon<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOwn photo<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Dixon is involved in society in a variety of ways. She developed a symptom checker to make heavy blood loss a topic people can talk about and helped organise a fundraising campaign for women who don\u2019t have enough money for tampons or sanitary pads.<\/p>\n

The student group Medical Students in Society (Geneeskundestudenten In De Samenleving \u2013 GIDS<\/em>), founded by EUR students Jeanne Arnold, Thomas Pereira Horta and Ay\u00e7a Cozar, was also in the top three. With GIDS, students are given the opportunity to experience societal problems first-hand and help resolve these. The third finalist, Coen Vulders, is from Nijmegen. Vulders\u2019 project focuses on student mental health and helps make this a topic people feel comfortable talking about. His project included organising symposiums on depression and burn-out.<\/p>\n\n\t

\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t
\n\t\t\u2018Ik hoor van andere studenten dat ze graag zo\u2019n kastje willen op hun faculteit. Het zou mooi zijn als ik hier een trend mee zet\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Embarrassment and taboos around periods<\/h2>

When Dixon wrote her master\u2019s degree thesis on heavy menstrual blood loss, she discovered just how engrained the shame, embarrassment and taboos about heavy periods are. That\u2019s why she produced a symptom checker, which she shared on social media. \u201cAround one in four women have heavy periods, but what is heavy?\u201d stated Dixon. \u201cSupervised by doctors, I tried to produce an objective benchmark. I distributed this on social media and within Erasmus MC, and even the AD<\/em> newspaper shared it. I also had the checker translated into English, Turkish and Arabic so I could reach as many women as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>

Yara created this symptom checker<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYara Dixon<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Dixon also worked hard to combat period poverty. Almost ten per cent of women in the Netherlands sometimes has no money for sanitary pads. She started a fundraising campaign together with the International Federation of Medical Students\u2019 Associations Rotterdam (IFMSA)<\/em>. There\u2019s now a cupboard with free period products on the medical faculty. \u201cI\u2019ve managed to arrange for the cupboard to be restocked every two weeks, and I\u2019ve also heard from other students who\u2019d like to have such a cupboard in their faculty. It would be great if this started a trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

More about menstruation<\/h2>