In memoriam Paul Wuisman

On the 25th of July, entirely unexpected, Professor Dr. Paul Wuisman passed away at the age of 50. Although still overwhelmed by this tragedy, we would like to pay tribute to this exceptional man.

Paul Wuisman studied medicine in Utrecht , The Netherlands, and completed his professional education in Austria , Germany and USA . He started his career in Amsterdam in 1994 when he was appointed professor and head of the department of orthopaedic surgery at the age of 36. Within a short time he formed a group of young orthopaedic specialists constituting a full department. With his staff he succeeded in expanding the scope of clinical care and particularly in successfully taking up the challenge of complex surgical care and in doing so, brought fame to the department on both, national and international level. Paul was very much aware that besides tertiary surgical care, his department should also offer a variety of experimental and clinical research work as well as educational opportunities to medical students, residents and PhD students. To these purposes he co-founded the Skeletal Tissue Engineering Group Amsterdam (STEGA) and initiated a close working relationship with ACTA, the university (VU) and the university medical centre (VUmc). In the almost “creatio ex nihilo” of the orthopaedic department, the role of Paul Wuisman was much more that of an inspirator rather than that of an organizer. He succeeded in building a personality that  motivates essentually everyone around him to help build a great department as he envisioned it. Paul Wuisman was a reliable and trustworthy leader and expressed an unconditional dedication to the care of his patients.

Paul Wuisman eradiated immense energy and was an inexhaustible source of ideas generating and acquiring research funds to expand knowledge and perform research work in his department. Despite his relatively short career many PhD candidates successfully defended their thesis under his supervision. Clinical and experimental research work performed by the STEGA and within the orthopaedic department formed the basis of more than 150 papers and publications co-written by Paul earning him international reputation in the fields of stem cell technology and bioresorbable polymers. He has frequently been invited to give lectures at major congresses all over the world, has been appointed a visiting professor in China and gave guest lectures in China , Egypt and India , amongst others. Paul also met the obligations of a member of the Editorial Board of the European Spine Journal and was as a reviewer much asked for support by several journals such as Clinical Orthopedics, Spine, J. Biomaterials etc.

Paul Wuisman was a member of numerous national and international professional societies. He only recently joined our European Network for Regenerative Medicine EEIG REGENERATE but already substantially supported the activities of our network.

A recent initiative of the REGENERATE platform brought together an international consortium to apply for a research project in the 7^th Research framework program of the EU.  He was very proud when we recently passed through the first evaluation round with this large research project for which he accepted to become the coordinator.  He was working hard to make this application a success but unfortunately his mistimed death has robbed him of this dream. We will dedicate our efforts for implementation of this project to his memory.

There are many things for which he will be remembered and we thank him for sharing his time and his ideas with us. The reminiscence of his calm, considerate and friendly character will stay in our memories reflecting our gratefulness of having known this outstanding person, clinician and investigator.