Inauguration of plastic surgeon Andrzej Piatkowski

Breast reconstruction, for example, can also be done by fat cell transplantation, the so-called AFT procedure. Andrzej Piatkowski has investigated this procedure in several multicentre trials in recent years and eventually brought this method to the clinic, making the Netherlands the first country in the world where this treatment is reimbursed from the basic health insurance package. 

Lipofilling, a modern and recognised technique within reconstructive surgery, offers patients a less invasive breast reconstruction option after overcoming breast cancer, available to breast cancer patients worldwide. To further support these developments and ambitions, the chair of innovative reconstructive surgery was established.

Andrzej's story

He arrives in white uniform, holding in his hand a toolbox in which you suspect a drill: dark blue plastic with a red logo on it. “If you want a job done, it's best to ask a Pole,” Prof. Dr. Andrzej Piatkowski jokes. He has enjoyed working as a plastic surgeon at Maastricht UMC+ and as a NUTRIM researcher since 2011. 

On May 9, his career was given extra sparkle with his inauguration as professor of ‘Innovative Reconstructive Surgery’. Time to talk to him about his pioneering work in the field of breast reconstruction, German hierarchy, kite surfing and that briefcase.

Professor Piatkowski was born in Poland but grew up in Germany from the age of three. His parents and three of his grandparents were doctors, as were two generations before them. ‘My father was a surgeon, my mother a general practitioner and anaesthetist, my grandfather a gynaecologist and my grandmother a surgeon - all that hard work didn't sound like much fun,’ he says. Nevertheless, he started studying medicine. 

Read the interview with Professor Piatkowski in Dutch here

Watch the inaugural lecture of Andzrej Piatkowski

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