Bessel van der Kolk practised at a period when medicine itself was being rebuilt on new foundations.
The record lists Bessel van der Kolk as Dutch-American psychiatrist, researcher and educator.
Bessel van der Kolk was born at The Hague in 1943. His recorded nationality is Netherlands. He trained at University of Hawaiʻi System and Pritzker School of Medicine.
Antibiotics, imaging and the randomised trial defined twentieth-century medicine; evidence replaced authority as the standard.
His posts were held at Boston University, Boston State Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
The recorded fields of work are psychiatry and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Clinical knowledge is accumulated slowly and revised often, usually at some cost.
That the work was done from Netherlands matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Achievements
- Held posts at Boston University, Boston State Hospital and Harvard Medical School
- Fields: psychiatry and post-traumatic stress disorder
