Just before the start of the World Cup in football, Doha, Qatar, 2022, the Professor in charge for the medical care of its participants will be a guest of our Faculty and Center

Introductory lecture by Prof. Dr. Pieter D’Hooghe, Chief Medical Officer of the Aspetar Clinic

On behalf of the Center for Sports Medicine and Exercise Therapy, we would like to inform you that the CMO of the Aspetar Clinic in Doha, Qatar, Pieter D’Hooghe, will hold an introductory lecture titled “There’s no such thing as simple ankle sprain in elite Sports” in the Ceremonial Hall of the Medical Faculty in Belgrade, on Friday, June 17th, 2022. starting at 1 p.m. The occasion is the promotion of Dr. D’Hooghe to Visiting Professor of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade. We are pleased and honored that Dr. Pieter D’Hooghe accepted the invitation and agreed to become part of our professional and scientific team of foreign experts in the field of Sports Sciences. During many years of dedicated work and activities in the field of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine, Dr. D’Hooghe has achieved enormous success in the surgical treatment of knee, ankle, and foot injuries, specializing in an arthroscopic, minimally invasive surgical approach. Dr. D’Hooghe will selflessly share all his knowledge and skills during his stay in Serbia and his visit to the Faculty of Medicine and our Center.

A short biography: Prof. Dr. Pieter D’Hooghe grew up in Belgium, where he started his career and then continued his medical education in several European medical centers. He has completed the specialization in Orthopedic surgery at the University Hospital Leuven in Belgium, after which he was employed as an associate at the University Hospital in Amsterdam, side by side with Dr. Niek van Dijk, where he specialized in minimally invasive sports traumatology of the lower extremities. He also worked at the AZ Delta Department of Orthopedic Surgery in Roeselare, Belgium, and as the director of the FIFA F-MARC Flemish Surgical Center of Excellence, where he has treated many elite athletes from Belgium and all over the world.

In addition to his medical career, Dr. D’Hooghe also had an extremely successful academic career. He has already completed three master’s academic programs in the field of Sports Medicine, Tropical Medicine, and Medical Management. He has attended and completed his doctoral studies in the field of Orthopedic Surgery at the Medical Faculty in Liège. Professor D’Hooghe has published over 150 publications, of which 82 papers in total in journals on the SCI list, cited 609 times. According to the Scopus database, the H index is 14. He is also the editor of 8 textbooks on sports injuries of the lower extremities and the author of more than 40 chapters in various books and textbooks. He is a member of the editorial board and a reviewer in several journals: Journal of Science and Medicine in Football, BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, American Journal of Sports Medicine (AJSM), British Journal of Sports Medicine (BJSM), and Assistant Editor of the Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal. As a member of the F-MARC (Football Medical Assessment and Research Center) board, he has been an author or contributor to over 400 F-MARC publications since 2010.

He is also passing all his knowledge, skills, and experience to the young medical students at Weil Cornel University, where he is engaged as a lecturer in the Department of Surgery. Dr. D’Hooghe is also the President of the ISAKOS Committee (International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery, and Orthopedic Sports Medicine), where he leads an international group of medical experts in the field of arthroscopic sports orthopedics. He is the current president of the working group for young researchers of this association.

In addition to education and scientific research, Prof. D’Hooghe is also a former elite athlete and FIFA instructor. He has been hired as a senior orthopedic consultant for 7 Champions League football teams in Europe, and since 2017 in FC Red Star Belgrade, 1 team in the USA, and 4 teams in Asia. He is currently Chief Medical Officer of the Aspetar Hospital for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine in Doha, Qatar, which is one of the most prestigious institutions of this type in the world.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Sports Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, with the help of Visiting Professor of our Department, Dr. Nebojsa Popovic, have organized the Belgrade Sports Medicine E Forum, in which Prof. Dr. Pieter D’Hooghe gave a very notable lecture entitled: Ankle injuries in athletes. We hope that together we will welcome and host Prof. Dr. Pieter D’Hooghe.