General
Prof.dr. Paul Fockens, professor of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (MDL) will give his farewell lecture on Wednesday December 20th at 16:30, entitled:
Nog lang niet uitgekeken / Far from finished
All scientific practitioners and all interested parties are invited to attend this ceremony by the Rector Magnificus Prof. Dr. Ir. Peter-Paul Verbeek. It will take place in the Aula der Universiteit. If you would like to give a gift, we ask you to contribute to a charity that Paul is passionate about: World Bicycle Relief. A special donation page has been created for Paul's farewell, where you can deposit an amount of your choice.
Paul Fockens
As an academic medical specialist, it is necessary to choose an area in which you want to develop further. This could be in healthcare, research and/or education. Fockens' area of care and research became endoscopy of the gastrointestinal tract. In over 30 years, endoscopy has undergone enormous development and Fockens' profession increasingly changed from observation to intervention. In 2023, more and more surgical operations can also be performed endoscopically with fewer complications and without external scars. In addition, patients usually recover significantly faster after endoscopic procedures than after surgery. Fockens also notes that patient-related, comparative scientific research has shown that endoscopic methods are not only better, but also cheaper.
![Head shot of prof.dr. Paul Fockens](/upload_mm/4/9/1/72612_fullimage_14165_fullimage_mf006326%20paul%20fockens_768x432.jpg)
But how do you ensure that such a change can also be implemented throughout the profession? Because how do you keep everyone on board and also how do you guarantee the quality of these new interventions? It applies to medicine as a whole that we can do more and more each year and that in order to properly implement these innovations, further individual specialization is necessary. At the same time, the basics of medicine should not be lost sight of, because many patients have multiple (major or minor) conditions and the overview is jeopardized if the patient has to be seen by a separate doctor for each condition, especially if all of the doctors are within one specialty.