About us

On the 27^th of October in the year 1275, count Floris V van Holland gave away toll privileges for the inhabitants of ‘Amestelledamme’. This is what we consider to be the founding of our beloved city of Amsterdam. Throughout the years, progressiveness and medicine have been an important part of Amsterdam and its culture. Famous examples are tolerance towards legal use and sale of soft drugs, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. Furthermore, an example that is more fitting to the medical profession is that dissections were still a taboo in the beginning of the 16th century. However, medical specialist realized the importance of human anatomy and started to publicly dissect convicted criminals that had passed away in Amsterdam. In addition to understanding human anatomy, the dissections led to famous paintings such as the ‘Anatomy Lesson by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, which can still be seen in the Mauritshuis in The Hague. Currently, medicine still plays an important role in Amsterdam. At the Amsterdam Shoulder and Elbow Center of Expertise we value the progressiveness of our predecessors. We agree with how they questioned cultural taboos and their investigative approach and therefore value evidence based medicine in daily practice. 

Our institution needs to deliver the best possible care for shoulder and elbow pathology. This care is based on progressive qualitatively distinctive patient care, innovation, evidence-based medicine and education for residents, clinicians and researchers. The goal is to provide high quality clinical care where treatment in a hospital setting is necessary and general practitioners can consult our institution to make an adequate distinction. Treatment can be non-operative, but will generally consist of operative treatment. Furthermore, to perform at the highest possible level our institution works with multiple disciplines, which include orthopedics, radiology, traumatology, sports medicine, emergency medicine, oncology and physiotherapy. By combining our knowledge, we are able to deliver the best possible care. Finally, besides from our medical proficiencies, an institution thrives with a well-organized administrative and management team. Our institution believes it is of great importance to create a pleasant working environment for our all employees and include everyone to reach our goal.

In accordance with our vision in healthcare, the goal is to perform high quality multidisciplinary research to be shared at scientific congresses for both the shoulder and the elbow. We collaborate with institutions in the Netherlands as well as international institutions. Example are our collaboration with Movement Sciences in Amsterdam and the Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. Young promising students with a clinical, biomechanical or biomedical background who aim to get more experience in this field get supervision from our organization to develop themselves as proficient researchers. This can eventually lead to a PhD in the field of shoulder or elbow research. For more information regarding ongoing research projects, please click here.

Education is an important aspect of our vision. The Amsterdam Shoulder and Elbow Center of Expertise has been appointed as an official SECEC-Teaching-Center by the SECEC Qualification-Committee in collaboration with the National Delegate of the Netherlands. We are honored to have been accepted for this title and strive to uphold the high-quality education standards that come with its name.