Joep Knol

Department of Digestive and Oncological Surgery
Chair Department of Colorectal Surgery, ZOL ziekenhuis
Genk, België

Member of EAES and BSCRS (member of the board)
Co-founder of the iLappSurgery Foundation
National coordinator of AIS-channel

Prof. Dr. Joep Knol is a dutch surgeon who lives and works in Belgium for more than 30 years and who also had his complete medical and surgical training in Belgium.

Joep Knol worked for some years as a member of staff of the Department of Abdominal Surgery of the University Hospital of Leuven; as a young surgeon he visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (USA) on a yearly base.

From 2005 till 2010 he worked in the MZNL Hospital in Pelt after which he moved to the Jessa hospital in Hasselt from 2010-2020. During the last few years he was the Chair of the Department of Abdominal Surgery. In 2019 he successfully defended his PhD-thesis on “Transanal Total Mesorectal Excision – Safe Introduction of A New Technique”; the thesis was jointly supervised by the VU Amsterdam (NL) and the UHasselt (BE). In 2020 he was appointed as clinical professor at the UHasselt and he also was appointed as a Master at the University of Catania, Italy. In Catania he teaches Anatomy of the abdomen with a focus on minimal invasive surgery and approaches (laparoscopy and robotic surgery).

In 2015 Joep Knol was also co-founder of the iLappSurgery Foundation. This is a non for profit foundation which focuses on digital teaching, mainly through the development of Apps. The Foundation believes that this will help to improve the learning of young surgeons.
The content of the Apps is very dynamic and innovative; well known surgeons are participating to give lectures for the Apps.

Joep Knol is also national coordinator for the AIS channel, which is a web based channel with a focus on digital teaching.

From october 2020 on Joep Knol is working in the ZOL hospital in Genk (Belgium).
As the chair of the Department of Colorectal Surgery he organizes and improves the care of patients with colorectal diseases. 
He also is a board member of the BSCRS (Belgian Section of ColoRectal Surgery), expert in several steering groups, and reviewer for surgical journals.

He published more than 40 manuscripts and some book chapters as author or co-author, and he is presenting his work in surgical conferences around the world.
He also operated in many countries during courses or on invitation.

Joep Knol operates in the ZOL hospital in Genk, and also in the hospital in Maaseik.
His outpatient clinic is located in the ZOL hospital in Genk: +32 (0)89 326020