Bram Schalkwijk studied Technical Medicine at Delft University of Technology, a programme combining mechanical engineering and clinical medicine. He currently works at the Leiden University Medical Center in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, where his role spans both clinical practice and research. As part of the LAIXR research group, his work focuses on integrating artificial intelligence and virtual reality into the hospital setting, with the goal of improving both clinical training and patient outcomes. His current project centres on developing a high-fidelity VR-based ECMO training simulator powered by an AI-driven physiological model.