Peter van der Voort

Van der Voort became a member of the Senate in February 2020, succeeding Alexandra van Huffelen.

He was appointed as a member of the Senate in 2020 to succeed Alexandra van Huffelen because of his position on the party list during the previous election. Van Huffelen had vacated her seat because of her new position as State Secretary for Finance after the resignation of Menno Snel. Van der Voort was sworn in on February 4. He remained in his other positions, namely as intensivist and professor in Groningen and as professor and academic director in Utrecht. In the Senate, Van der Voort is a member of the Committees for Finances; Education, Culture, and Science; and Public Health, Welfare, and Sport.

Van der Voort left the OLVG to start working at the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) in October 2019 in the position of intensivist and head of the adult intensive care division. Besides that job, he also became a professor in the field of intensive care at the start of 2020 at the University of Groningen, to which the UMCG is affiliated.

He became involved in politics in 2017 when he became member of the board of D66 in Friesland. As a board member, Van der Voort has served as interim-president of the organization for a few months (2019–2020). He appeared ninth on the D66’s party list during the 2019 Dutch Senate election. His party won seven seats, and Van der Voort received two preferential votes out of the 50 votes the party was given – not enough to be elected senator.

Currently, Van der Voort serves as the chair of the task force group Health Economics of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) (since October 2016) and as secretary of the Joint Intensivist Commission (since September 2017). The latter consults intensive care educators.

He was trained as an intensivist and has led the intensive care units of three hospitals, currently being employed by the University Medical Center Groningen. He has also been involved in medical science since he received his doctorate. Van der Voort has been the head of an executive master at TIAS School for Business and Society since 2013. His research has focused on the improvement of intensive care quality and the effect of organizational change on the field.

In March 2013, Van der Voort became academic director of the executive master Health Administration at the Utrecht campus of TIAS School for Business and Society, that is affiliated with Tilburg University, next to his job at the OLVG. He also became a professor specialized in health care at Tilburg University in July 2014.

He studied again at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam between 2004 and 2006, receiving a Master of Science degree in epidemiology.

After finishing his intensive care training, Van der Voort started working as an intensivist at the Medical Center Leeuwarden in 1998, serving for some years as head of the division. He returned to the OLVG in 2006, working as medical director and educating co-workers and residents.

Van der Voort has been involved in a number of organizations related to intensive care next to his job. His first such position was as member of the board of the National Intensive Care Evaluation (NICE), a Dutch organization collecting data from intensive care units, between 1998 and 2010. He was the chairman of Venticare, an education foundation for intensive care, between 2004 and 2017, and he was chair of the Indicator Commission of the Dutch Commission for Intensive Care (NVIC).

Petrus Henricus Johannes van der Voort (born September 29, 1964) is a Dutch physician, professor, and politician, who currently serves as member of the Senate. He is a member of the social-liberal party Democrats 66 (D66).

Van der Voort was born on September 29, 1964 in Haarlem. He attended the high school Coornhert Lyceum before studying medicine between 1982 and 1990 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Van der Voort started a six-year training in internal medicine the following year at the Academic Medical Center and the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis (OLVG), both situated in Amsterdam. Starting in 1996, he also received two years of education in the field of intensive care medicine at the OLVG. He earned a European Diploma in Intensive Care in 1998 and received his doctor’s degree from the University of Amsterdam in 1999, after three years of study and finishing his dissertation titled “Helicobacter pylori in the critically ill patient”.

you may like: Sara Carbonero