ILS Medical Committee

Country

The Netherlands

Biography

Joost Bierens MD PhD MCPM (1954), is a retired anesthesiologist and emergency physician. During his professional career he had assignments as professor in Emergency Medicine at the department of anesthesiology, VU medical centre Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and visiting professor and thesis coordinator for the European Master Disaster Medicine at the Research Group Emergency and Disaster Medicine at the department of emergency medicine VU Brussels, Belgium. He still has an assignment as visiting professor at the Extreme Environments Laboratory, School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom.

His involvement in lifesaving started when working as professional lifeguard at the Netherland’s most southern beach during his school and university summer holiday. The awareness of lack of knowledge in the field of drowning, resulted in a PhD thesis on drowning (1996), co-organizing the first World Congress in Drowning (2002), and co-establishing the International Drowning Researcher’s Alliance (2014). He has contributed to conferences, drowning related research papers and WHO drowning prevention reports. He is the editor-in-chief of the first three editions of the book Drowning (2004, 2014, third edition expected 2025). For his volunteer work in the field of drowning prevention, he has received several national and international awards, including the title Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Joost Bierens is member of the ILS medical committee, rescue commission, education commission and voting member of the ILS international board with the task to establish an ILS lifesaving academy. He is also the liaison between the ILS and the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF).

Research Profile

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joost-Bierens

Drowning: Prevention, Rescue Treatment