Joost Bierens

Joost Bierens (1954 MD, PhD, MCDM) finished Gymnasium-β at the Monseigneur Zwijssen College in Veghel (the Netherlands) in1974 and medicine at the Catholic University Nijmegen (Netherlands) in1982. During several school and academic holidays he worked as a professional lifeguard. He specialized in anesthesiology at the University Leiden (the Netherlands) in 1988; and in emergency medicine at the Catholic University Leuven (Belgium) in 1990. During the period of clinical specializations, he initiated his first drowning-related studies. In 1996 he obtained a PhD in medicine at the University Utrecht (Netherlands) with the PhD-thesis Drowning in the Netherlands: Pathophysiology, epidemiology and clinical aspects. From 1998-2002 he coordinated the preparations of first World Congress on Drowning in Amsterdam in 2002. He is the coordinating editor of two standard works on drowning prevention, rescue and treatment. The books were published in 2006 and 2015; while the first book was also translated in Japanese. In total, he authored or contributed to over 150 publications related to drowning. He is linked to several national organisations (including the 1767 founded Royal Society to Rescue People from Drowning; the Royal Dutch Lifeboat Institution; and the Royal Dutch Lifesaving Society) and international organisations (including the International Lifesaving Society and the International Drowning Research Alliance) in different positions (member, chairman, advisor, consultant) and contributed to a wide variety of initiatives and projects. He received several national and international rewards for his commitment.

As a medical professional he worked in several senior positions as anesthesiologists with great interest in the development of emergency medicine in the Netherlands. Between 2000 and 2009 he was the first professor in the Netherlands nominated at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam with an academic chair in emergency medicine. His major fields of research were education, quality of care, resuscitation and disaster medicine. A Master in Crisis and Public Order Management (MCPM) was completed in 2014. In 2015, he was appointed as thesis coordinator for the European Master Disaster Medicine (EMDM).

Since the termination of his academic chair in Emergency Medicine in 2009, Joost Bierens divides his time between his family, clinical work as anesthesiologist, academic work as visiting professor at the Research Group Emergency and Disaster Medicine of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Belgium) and at the Research Institute Emergency and Disaster Medicine of the University East-Piemonte (Italy); and volunteer work in the area of drowning reduction.