Eigen column — 8 September 2026
The Elephant Path
Why experienced clinicians often keep walking familiar paths, how new patterns of recognition emerge, and why junior colleagues sometimes see the alternative explanation first.
Continue readingMerel Boas
Psychiatrist | independent adviser on diversity and equity
“Understanding people within the full context of their lives.”
Merel Boas combines experience in forensic psychiatry, neuropsychiatry and women's health with research and advice on diversity, equity and psychological safety at work.
Expertise
01
Forensic psychiatry
Psychiatrist and Pro Justitia assessor since 2010, and supervisor of assessments since 2022.
02
Neuropsychiatry and brain injury
Working with people with brain injury deepened her view of behaviour, emotion and functioning.
03
Women's health
Particular attention to hormones and to complaints that remain insufficiently recognised.
04
Diversity and equity
Independent policy advice and qualitative research on psychological safety and culture.
“What you take as given, I take as a question.”
What seems self-evident sometimes deserves the closest examination. That holds for diagnosis, for human behaviour, for collaboration, and for the way we look at one another.
Selected publications
de Volkskrant — 3 September 2026
Do We Take Women's Bodies and Minds Seriously?
On the need for coherent women's medicine and the possible training of a medical specialist in women's health.
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