Mark Smeulders MD, PhD

Dr. Mark Smeulders has been a plastic surgeon since 2016 focusing on reconstructive and hand and wrist surgery. From his previous studies of movement sciences, he became fascinated by hand and wrist problems, where the interaction of so many bones, tendons, muscles, and ligaments is very precise to function properly. As soon as he had completed his PhD in the field of muscle biomechanics of the spastic hand at the Department of Plastic, reconstructive and hand surgery of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, he decided to study medicine. In the meantime, he had seen how much a plastic surgeon could mean to a patient, also in treating hand and wrist problems.

He received his training at the Onze Lieve Vrouwen Gasthuis in Amsterdam, the Academic Medical Center, the Red Cross Hospital in Beverwijk, and the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek in Amsterdam. Immediately after his training, he did a Hand Trauma Fellowship in Cape Town. During that period he gained much experience in this very specialized field. He is now a European Board Certified Hand Surgeon.

After working for several years as a staff member in Amsterdam and at The Hand Clinic, he came to Zuyderland in early 2018. Since then, he has been working here with great pleasure in a close-knit team of colleagues. As a large peripheral hospital, Zuyderland offers specialist care in the field of reconstructive and hand and wrist care. His challenge is to choose the most optimal treatment together with the patient within these problems, in which the ability to function in daily life, work, or sports is paramount. In addition to my work at Zuyderland, he is a board member of the Dutch Association for Hand Surgery and a committee member of the training committee of the Dutch Association for Plastic Surgery.