Lisethe Meijer

Since the opening of the Princess Máxima Center in June 2018, I have been working as a pediatric oncologist in the brain tumor department. Before that, I trained as a pediatric oncologist at UMCG in Groningen and at Nottingham Children’s Hospital in Nottingham, England. I truly enjoy working in pediatric oncology because supporting children and their parents or caregivers in every part of their journey is meaningful work to me. Explaining what is going on, how we will treat it and guiding families from the first visit to long-term follow-up is something I value deeply. In the brain tumor department, we work in a multidisciplinary team with many different professionals, each contributing their own expertise. Together, we aim to support children and parents as well as possible to achieve the best quality of life. Even when a brain tumor does not have long-term survival, we do everything we can to support the child and their parents in a thoughtful and compassionate way. That is incredibly meaningful work.

I have a specific interest in children with low-grade glioma, with or without neurofibromatosis type 1. I lead the NF1 intervention center at the Máxima Center. One of our current research questions is how we can prevent vision loss in children with an optic pathway tumor. We are also studying which treatment for children with low-grade glioma is most effective and has the fewest side effects.

In addition, I am part of a group working on the development and improvement of ‘My Máxima Passport’. This is a multidisciplinary overview in our electronic patient record that is in the hands of the child and parents, and in the future can also be completed by local healthcare providers. It describes who the child is, what the child wants in life (during or after childhood cancer), how the child prefers to be supported during procedures, which professionals are involved and how each of them feels the child is doing within their area of expertise. This allows us to provide fully integrated care tailored to each individual child, so that every child receives the right care to achieve the best possible quality of life.