Herman Spanjaard, MD, MPH, FACOEM has had a storied career in occupational health. His first medical experience was working as a paramedic on an ambulance, then in an emergency medicine setting. He decided early on in his training that he wanted to pursue a field of medicine that has a strong connection with "real life." This led him to discover occupational health, which he passionately dubs "the most beautiful medical profession there is."
In this episode of OccTok, Dr. Spanjaard shares the reasons occupational medicine continues to amaze him every day. He points out that his career has exposed him to many different cultures with different challenges in keeping employees healthy and gives a peek into some of the work he has done throughout the world. As a founding member of the International Occupational Medicine Society's Collaborative (IOMSC), an organization that works to enable occupational and environmental medicine specialists around the world to address issues and identify opportunities, Dr. Spanjaard continues to advance the speciality by working to create healthy work environments and promoting employees' health and well-being.
OccTok is a podcast produced by Enterprise Health to support the mission of ACOEM's Ambassador Program, an initiative to increase awareness of occupational and environmental medicine among medical and APP students and residents and provide opportunities for real-world experiences for interested trainees.
The Ambassador Program is led by a group of occupational health professionals who recruit others in the specialty to volunteer as ambassadors and present at lunch-and-learns at medical and physician assistant schools throughout the U.S. The presentations introduce attendees to the specialty and its benefits which include high satisfaction and low burnout rates, and provide information on common work environments including hospitals and health systems, colleges and universities, the public sector, sports and entertainment, and a wide variety of corporate and manufacturing settings.
Listen now to hear Dr. Spanjaard's personal journey into occupational medicine.