The hospital

 St. Pierre University Hospital is located in downtown Brussels and is one of the city’s best medical facilities. It was established on the ruins of a 12th century leprosy infirmary in 1783 and completely reconstructed into a modern medical center.

The hospital is state-financed and associated with Belgium’s most prestigious institution for higher education, the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels). As a result, St. Pierre is fully staffed, adequately funded and state-of-the-art in terms of equipment, training and facilities. It is also a center for sophisticated medical research, and is well-known internationally, particularly for its Clinic of Digestive Surgery’s (CDS) work in the field of abdominal laparoscopic procedures.

The hospital is specially geared for intensive and emergency care, as well as trauma and minimally invasive surgery.

Over the last 10 years, the medical staff of St. Pierre’s CDS have performed more than 10,000 laparoscopic operations, and trained over 5,000 surgeons from around the world. The hospital has a number of world-firsts in gastro-intestinal (GI) laparoscopic surgery, including the first successful use of computer- and robotic-enhanced procedures.

The hospital’s laparoscopic surgical training courses are the only ones in Europe endorsed by both the European Association for Endoscopic Surgery (EAES) and the U.S.-based Society of American Gastro-Intestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). St. Pierre, the CDS and its staff have also been the focus of numerous press articles and broadcasts, notably featured in LIFE Magazine’s special issue entitled “Medical Miracles for the Next Millennium.”