Gynaecologist Andreas Thurkow wins COBRA award

Last Thursday 10th of April Andreas Thurkow, ob/gyn specialist at the Sint Lucas Andreas Hospital (SLAZ) was honoured with the prestigious COBRA Award. This award is granted every two years to a gynaecologist with special excellence in the contribution to the development of surgery within gynaecology in the Netherlands. Thurkow received this award for the fact that he has been committed to the development of gynaecological endoscopy and minimal invasive gynaecology (especially hysteroscopy and laparoscopy) for over 30 years and has trained others in this field of interest, both during formal training in ob/gyn and in a postgraduate setting, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

This year Thurkow will celebrate his 25 year anniversary at the Sint Lucas Andreas Hospital. His work has increasingly been focussed on minimal invasive techniques in gynaecology, for which meanwhile patients from all over the country are referred to the SLAZ, especially difficult cases. The SLAZ therefore truly has become a Center of Excellence for these techniques, for which colleagues both from the Netherlands and abroad come to visit the hospital for live surgery in the operating theatre or the ambulatory facility. This can either be for a course or on an individual basis.

Patients at the SLAZ can rest assure that they will be treated according to the state of the art in new technology, even if this is a non-surgical approach. Thurkow has a passion for the quest to the best-fit and least invasive treatment for each of his patients. He loves challenges, especially in the technical area, but the most important is the full satisfaction of the women treated by him.

COBRA award?

COBRA (Dutch acronym for committee for formal and postgraduate academic training) has taken care of formal and postgraduate training in gynaecological surgical techniques for more than 15 years. This is realised by the organization of courses, but also of the COBRA congress every two years including the presentation of the COBRA award. Examples of earlier recipients are: Prof Huub van der Vaart & Dr Jan-Paul Roovers for their research in uro-gynaecology and the late Prof Henk Boonstra from the Radboud University Nijmegen for his work in the area of gynaecological oncology.