Surgery

• Laparoscopic Surgery for Rectal and Colon Cancer: Investigating the outcomes of laparoscopic versus open surgery in colorectal cancer through randomized trials and meta-analyses, assessing efficacy, safety, and long-term outcomes.
• Advancements in Surgical Techniques and Education: Developing and evaluating innovative surgical methods such as transanal total mesorectal excision, and contributing to the evolution of surgical education in minimally invasive surgery.
• Economic Analysis of Surgical Approaches: Conducting health economic analyses to compare costs and benefits of laparoscopic and open surgery for rectal cancer.
• Setting Practice Standards in Surgical Oncology: Influential in establishing practice standards and guidelines, particularly in minimally invasive surgical oncology.
• Video Based Quality Assessment: Objective assessment of surgical skills while relating these to patient outcomes.
• Transformation of Education: revolutionary substitution of traditional workplace learning by digital learning environment, physical and virtual simulation

Prof. dr. Jaap Bonjer is Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Amsterdam UMC. He specialises in operations on the thyroid, parathyroid glands, adrenal glands, spleen disorders, inguinal hernias and incisional hernias. Prof. dr. Bonjer is closely involved in the development and scientific evaluation of keyhole surgery, both nationally and internationally. Additionally, his focus lies on training medical students and doctors to become surgeons. He has established training centers for surgical skills in Rotterdam and in Halifax, Canada.

In 2000, Prof. dr. Bonjer was awarded a Chair in Endoscopic Surgery at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He developed a multidisciplinary simulation facility, the Skills Lab Erasmus MC, in Rotterdam in 2004.

He was Professor of Surgery at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, from 2004 until 2009 and served as Chair of the Dalhousie and Capital Health Department of Surgery from 2006 through 2009. He initiated the Nova Scotia Surgical Network and founded in 2007 an inter-professional learning environment, the Skills Centre for Health Sciences, in Halifax.

Prof. dr. Bonjer is founder and CEO of the Amsterdam Skills Centre (ASC) for Health Sciences which will open in January 2019. The ASC will train more than 3,000 health care professionals per year. The ASC develops in collaboration with international partners a New Way of Learning; a scalable, digital and mobile learning environment enabling a shortened and sustainable curriculum for health care professionals worldwide.

Prof. dr. Bonjer completed a Health-MBA program at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam in 2014. He is Associate Editor of Surgical Endoscopy, President of the European Association of Endoscopic Surgery (2017 – 2019) and President Elect of the Dutch Society of Surgery. Dr. Bonjer is initiator and principal investigator of the COLOR, COLOR II and COLOR III trials in patients with colorectal cancer. Centres throughout Europe, North America and Asia participate in these trials.

He has published more than 320 peer reviewed scientific manuscripts (h-index 62) and edited five surgical textbooks

Activities

• Chair of the Department of Surgery at Amsterdam UMC.
• Founder and CEO of the Amsterdam Skills Centre for Health Sciences.
• Editor in Chief of Surgical Endoscopy.
• Founder and Chair of Digital United Training Concepts in Healthcare (DUTCH) – a national initiative funded by the Dutch National Growth Fund