Dr Philip Remans has been elected the new president of the Belgian professional association of rheumatologists. He is taking over from Dr Laurent Meric de Bellefon.
Dr Philip Remans is head of the rheumatology and immunology department at ZOL (Ziekenhuis Oost-Limburg Hospital) and also consults at the Reumacentrum Genk.
Dr Philip Remans graduated from KU Leuven and trained as a rheumatologist at LUMC Leiden. Here he also completed his PhD thesis: « oxidative stress in rheumatoid arthritis ».
He worked at the AMC in Amsterdam between 2002 and 2009 and returned to Belgium, Genk, in 2009.
The professional association of rheumatologists is facing an extremely important period with the changes and adaptations within the health care system initiated in 2020 as well as the related funding.
The problem of shortages on the labour market and increasing pressure on health professionals remains an important point of attention.
In rheumatology training, ‘striving for excellence’ remains of priority.
Rheumatology remains one of the last specialties that needs to take the entirety of patient care into account and where the rheumatologist is the central link in the multidisciplinary consultation with the other specialists.
The administrative burdens imposed within medicine (by multiple authorities) must be reduced to an absolute minimum in order for rheumatologists to focus on practicing their profession with the necessary attention, knowledge, love and dignity.
