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Jacques Brotchi is head of the neurosurgery department of Erasme University Hospital in Brussels, president of the World Federation of Neurosurgery and a Liberal member of the Belgian Senate.
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BRUSSELS (EJP)---A Belgian world renowned neurosurgeon will receive on Monday a high distinction from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his action in promoting progress and knowledge.
The Scopus Prize 2008 will be awarded to Prof. Jacques Brotchi, head of the neurosurgery department of Erasme University Hospital in Brussels since 1982, at a gala event in Brussels organized by the Belgian Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the presence of Crown Prince Philippe and Princess Mathilde of Belgium.
Former European Parliament president Simone Veil, a Scopus Prize laureate in 2007, will also attend the event as well as Prof. Sari Nusseibeh, President of the Al-Quds university in East Jerusalem.
The 66-year-old Brotchi is also president of the World Federation of Neurosurgery and a Liberal member of the Belgian Senate.
As head of the neurosurgery department of Hospital Erasme, he has developed an active collaboration with the renowned Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation of the University of Jerusalem on joint research projects on the brain.
The award ceremony will be preceded by an international colloquium on the brain and the latest discoveries in neurosurgery to be attended by several international specialists.
Jacques Brotchi was born in Liège in 1942 in a Jewish family from Moldova. His parents came to Belgium in the thirties after fleeing anti-Semitism in the eastern European country.
During the Nazi occupation, Jacques and his parents were hidden by a Belgian family.
He graduated in medicine from the State University of Liège in 1967 and completed his training in neurosurgery under Prof.Joël Bonnal at the Neurosurgical Clinic of the university. In 1982, he moved to Brussels where he created the Department of Neurosurgery at Erasme University Hospital.
A member of the Belgian French-speaking Liberal party, he was elected at the Belgian Senate in 2004 where he invested himself in his favourite fields: health and bioethics.
Since 2006 he is a councillor at the Brussels commune of Uccle.
Explaining his choice to enter into politics, he told EJP: “I didn’t choose politics, politics chose me. I am continuing my full time neurosurgery activities and my medical life. Politics came to me because of my many years of experience on the medical and ethical scenes. I was confronted with a battle to improve the situation of healthcare and so I accepted this challenge to enter into politics.”