Marike van der Schaaf graduated from the AUAS with a degree in Physiotherapy in 1991. She went on to work as a clinical and outpatient rehabilitation physiotherapist for hospitalised patients, employed from 1994 onwards at the UvA's Academic Medical Center (AMC).

In 2004 Marike completed (cum laude) the AMC-UvA's MSc programme in Evidence Based Practice, qualifying her as a clinical epidemiologist, and in 2009 obtained her PhD from the same university, with a thesis on Functional Recovery After Critical Illness. Since then she has been a senior researcher at the AMC-UvA's Rehabilitation Department, combining this and her professorial post at the AUAS's Faculty of Health to do applied research in collaboration with other researchers, care professionals, lecturers and students. Her more than fifty articles published in Dutch and international peer-reviewed journals, presentations at scientific gatherings in the Netherlands and abroad, and her active involvement in the education and ongoing training of healthcare professionals testify to her profound dedication to the dissemination of knowledge and expertise.

In her inaugural speech as professor on 7 June 2016, Marike van der Schaaf spoke on the importance of Ensuring quality of survival in hospital patients with complex needs. Her professorship in Rehabilitation in Acute Care studies the impacts of illness and hospitalisation and develops rehabilitation treatments to minimise these effects. Marike is very committed to enhancing quality of life for patients in and following intensive care (IC). She is a core group member of the Family and Patient Centered Intensive Care (FCIC) foundation, in which professionals, experts from the field and scientists work together to mitigate the impacts of intensive care admission for this group of patients and their families.

To generate more awareness about these impacts, Marike and colleagues at the AMC-UvA have been organising a Post ICU Challenge since 2016, in which post-IC patients, informal caregivers, care professionals, lecturers and students team up to do the Amsterdam UMC Run together. Through a combination of newspaper and television coverage, this team has drawn wider public attention to the potential impacts of an ICU stay. Marike teaches the courses Physiotherapy in the ICU and Post-Intensive Care Syndrome in Primary Care at the Dutch Institute for Allied Healthcare (Nederlands Paramedisch Instituut; NPi). She is also the Rehabilitation section editor for The Netherlands Journal of Critical Care and a member of the International Board on Weaning and Early Rehabilitation in Critically Ill Patients.

PhD candidates

Marike is currently supervising nine PhD candidates in the field of Rehabilitation in Acute Care.

• Juultje Sommers (Physiotherapist at the Amsterdam UMC: Physiotherapy in intensive care)
• Maarten van Egmond (Physiotherapist/lecturer at the AUAS: Physiotherapy for complex surgical patients)
• Mel Major-Helsloot (Physiotherapist/lecturer at the AUAS: Physiotherapy for IC-survivors in the post-clinical phase)
• Jesse Aarden (Physiotherapist/lecturer at the AUAS: Physiotherapy for vulnerable elderly during and after hospitalisation)
• Robin Kwakman (Physiotherapist/lecturer at the AUAS: Physiotherapy in intensive care)
• Michel Terbraak (Physiotherapist/lecturer at the AUAS: Physiotherapy for vulnerable patients with cardiac conditions)
• Sven Geelen (Physiotherapist at the Amsterdam UMC: Activating patients during hospitalisation)
• Emily Klooster (Physiotherapist at the Deventer hospital: Activation of hospital patients)
• Ilse van Beutekom (Physiotherapist/medical information specialist at the Amsterdam UMC: IC patient aftercare)

In 2017, Marike also supervised PhD candidate Daniela Dettling, who wrote her doctoral thesis on The Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS); Impact of ICU-stay on functioning and implications for rehabilitation care.