Guests of honor
The professors emeriti Piet Rispens, Willem Eisma and Rients Rozendal are willing to attend our congress as our special Guests of Honor. It is a great honor and privilege for the organizing committee of the 5th International Congress Rehabilitation ‘Mobility, Exercise & Sports’ to have these three special guests among the audience. Three persons, who have been among the founding fathers of human movement sciences in the Netherlands and were at the forefront of the active and strong collaboration of human movement and rehabilitation sciences in the Netherlands. They will introduce themselves in a short personal note below. We will heartedly welcome them at the UMCG venue.
Willem H. Eisma
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Willem H. Eisma was born in 1938 in Meppel in the Netherlands.
He studied medicine at the University of Groningen. After his graduation in 1963 he fulfilled the training for medical specialist for rehabilitation medicine at the Maartenskliniek Nijmegen and the Rehabilitation Department of the University Hospital Groningen, later University Medical Center Groningen, between 1963 and 1967. From 1967 till 1973 he was co-founder and Head of the Rehabilitation Center Beatrixoord at Haren (Gn.). He worked during this period partial at the Beatrixoord Center as well as at the Department of Rehabilitation of the University Hospital Groningen where he was appointed as Head of the Department in 1973 till 2000. In 1980 he became Professor in Rehabilitation Medicine of the University of Groningen. |
On the national scene he performed many functions on the domain of Health, Education and Research within the Dutch Society of Rehabilitation Medicine and an important role in the co-founding of the study Movement Sciences of the University of Groningen. He was guiding 38 theses.
On the international scene he was active in the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, from 1989-1992 as World President of the Executive Board. He was also active in the Dutch Caribbean where he founded a rehabilitation center in Curacao and an out-patients’ department in Aruba. Further European activities in EEG programmes.
The Queen of the Netherlands appointed him in 2000 to be an Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau. He retired in 2000 but functioned after that in several hospitals as interim manager Head of the Department.
On the international scene he was active in the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, from 1989-1992 as World President of the Executive Board. He was also active in the Dutch Caribbean where he founded a rehabilitation center in Curacao and an out-patients’ department in Aruba. Further European activities in EEG programmes.
The Queen of the Netherlands appointed him in 2000 to be an Officer in the Order of Oranje-Nassau. He retired in 2000 but functioned after that in several hospitals as interim manager Head of the Department.
Rients Rozendal
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Rients Rozendal (1933) was educated at gymnasia in Amersfoort and Rotterdam, studied Medicine graduating in 1956; obtained his PhD in 1964 on research in chicken bone growth in vitro, and was appointed lecturer in Anatomy and Embryology in 1968, in the Faculty of Medicine at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. He occupied the chair in Functional Morphology in the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences at the same University from 1971 to his retirement in 1998. He served the faculty as Dean for a total of 14 years and the University as Hon. Secretary of the College of Deans (1974-’81) and as Conrector (1991-’93).
He directed research in morphology and mechanics of skeletal muscle and in gross human movements as speed skating, wheelchair driving, occupational loading of the back and arms, and especially gait in various neurological and orthopedic disorders. He (co-)supervised 24 PhD students in the Faculty and in the Technical University of Delft and served as external examiner on many other occasions, especially in Rehabilitation Medicine. |
Believing in multidisciplinary translational research, Rozendal was instrumental in positioning the Faculty of Human Movement Sciences in Rehabilitation by participating in and founding of various scientific Societies on this topic in The Netherlands and abroad.
Piet Rispens
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Piet Rispens was born in 1936 in Franeker and grew up in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands. When he was 19 years old he started his working career as a teacher. Three years later he started his medical training in Groningen and after finishing this he became medical physiologist at the University of Groningen, with research on blood gas transport and acid-base physiology. He obtained his PhD in 1970 on a thesis about acid-base equilibrium in artificial surgical hypothermia. His later research concerned acib-base physiology during physical exercise.
Next to his research job he was teaching physiology at the Academy of Physical Education and Physiotherapy. From 1976 onwards he was involved in the preparation of establishing Human Movement Sciences as a new study at the University of Groningen, which started in 1984. He then became head of this department and was responsible for further development of the new study. In 1990 he occupied the first chair of Human Movement Sciences at the University of Groningen. Under his direction the department developed research in various fields of Physical Education and Physiotherapy, in close co-operation with other departments of both the Faculties of Medical and of Social Sciences. |
In 1998 he retired as head of the department, but continued being actively related to research on Cardiac Rehabilitation and Physical Education in the Elderly. As a physiologist he always remained fascinated by movement as an outstanding life phenomenon: Moveo Ergo Sum.
