The first half of my Erasmus placement at Aisthesis Medical has been a demanding but genuinely rewarding experience, and one that has stretched me well beyond the academic environment I came from. As a Founder’s Associate, I joined the company during an intense and formative period – its fundraise for VIOSync, an AI-driven sepsis-prediction platform – and I was quickly trusted with real responsibility rather than peripheral tasks. Adjusting to the pace and openness of an early-stage company took some time, but it has been one of the most valuable aspects of the exchange.
The collaboration itself has worked well. I was given a clear area of ownership – the health economics work underpinning the fundraise – together with the autonomy to shape how it was done and the support to ask questions when I needed guidance. That balance of independence and mentorship has allowed me to grow into the role and to feel that my contribution genuinely matters to the team. Producing work that outside investors will scrutinise, rather than work that a tutor will simply mark, has raised my personal standard for rigour: I have learned that an output must be not only correct but also transparent, traceable, and defensible to a sceptical reader.
The challenges have been the most instructive part of the placement. I inherited work with weaknesses that had to be rebuilt properly, and I encountered situations where the responsible choice was to document a problem openly and raise it for a decision rather than quietly smooth it over. These moments taught me more about analytical honesty and professional judgement than any coursework could.
On balance, I believe the core objectives of the programme are being met. My aim was to develop applied skills in health economics and startup operations while contributing something of real value to the host organisation, and both are happening: my work is being used directly in the company’s fundraise, and I now have a far clearer understanding of how early-stage healthtech companies are built, financed, and run. Just as importantly, I have grown in confidence, adaptability, and my ability to work independently within a professional team.
For the second half of the exchange, I would like to close several open questions so that the work rests on fully sourced and defensible foundations, to bring more structure to how tasks and priorities are tracked, and above all to deepen my grasp of the strategic reasoning behind the deliverables rather than the deliverables alone. The overarching insight I take with me into the remainder of the placement is the difference between work that is merely correct and work that is genuinely defensible — a distinction that has already reshaped how I approach everything I do.