Dr. Jan Molenaar was born in 1932 and graduated in 1959 from the Free University of Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit or VU for short). After three years as a missionary doctor in Papua New Guinea, he returned to Amsterdam for surgical training. In 1969, he spent a year in Pediatric Surgery with Dr. Davy Vervat in the Sophia Children's Hospital in Rotterdam. Back in Amsterdam, he set up a new Department of Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care, specially dedicated for surgical patients. In 1974, he returned to Rotterdam as Head of the Pediatric Surgery Department there, delivering his inaugural lecture as Professor in 1977.
