title: Ite Boerema--surgeon and engineer with a double-Dutch legacy to medical technology.
abstract: Ite Boerema, 1902-1978: a Dutchman with a brilliant academic surgical career, and war hero, decorated for resistance to the Germans in World War II. As a man who regarded surgery as "engineering in medicine," we still feel his legacy in medical technology today, specifically with regard to his work on esophageal anastomoses and hyperbaric oxygen therapy. This biography places his major contributions to medicine in context of the man himself and of contemporary medicine.
authors.affiliation: University of Adelaide, Department of Surgery, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide, Australia.
authors.forename: Lisa N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Leopardi
authors.forename: Matthew S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Metcalfe
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Forde
authors.forename: Guy J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Maddern
mesh_terms: D000714:Anastomosis, Surgical / Q000266:history; D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000266:history*; D006348:Cardiac Surgical Procedures / Q000266:history; D005743:Gastrectomy / Q000295:instrumentation; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D006931:Hyperbaric Oxygenation / Q000266:history; D009426:Netherlands; D013525:Surgical Instruments / Q000266:history; D014481:United States