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Prof. Dr. Richard van Hillegersberg

MD, PhD, Professor of Surgery and Consultant of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgical Oncology, Cancer Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, Netherlands Surgical Oncology
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Prof. Dr. Richard van Hillegersberg attended medical school in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 1990 he received a research grant from the Dutch Digestive Foundation, that enabled him to perform PhD research on the local treatment of liver metastases at the Department of Surgery, Erasmus MC in Rotterdam. In 1993 he received his PhD with honor. After obtaining his MD in 1994, he became a surgery resident in Rotterdam and was registered as a general surgeon in 2000. From 2001-2002 he was a fellow of Surgical Oncology in the Academic Medical Center and Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Netherlands Cancer Center Amsterdam. Since 2003 he has been appointed as staff surgeon at the University Medical Center Utrecht. From 2009 he is a full professor of gastrointestinal oncology and program leader of the GI-Oncology department. From 2015-2018 he was a board member of the UMC Cancer. From 2015 to 2020 he was the head of the Department of Surgical Oncology of the UMC Utrecht.

His clinical interest is upper gastrointestinal tract surgery. Research is focused on minimally invasive and robotic surgery, surgical imaging and genetic profiling. He started with robotic surgery in 2003. Currently, he is performing about 40-60 robot-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (RAMIE) procedures per year. More recently gastrectomies have performed fully robotic (RAMIG). 

He has authored and co-authored over 10 chapters in textbooks concerning robotic foregut surgery and over 400 articles in international peer-reviewed journals. 

He is past president of the Dutch GI Surgical Association, past board member of the Dutch Surgical Association, past board member and founder of the Dutch Society for Liver Surgery, past president of the European Digestive Surgery, past Chairman and founder of the Dutch Upper GI Surgery Working Group and member of the permanent Scientific committee OESO World Organisation for Specialised studies on diseases of the esophagus. From 2016-2019 he was chairman of the Comprehensive Cancer Network Utrecht. Since 2017 he has been the president of the European Society of Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (ESSAT) and a surgical representative in the council of the United European Gastroenerology. He is chairman and council member of the Educational Committee of the European Society for Diseases for the Esophagus (EDS), and founder and chairman of the Upper GI International Robotic Association (UGIRA).