On July 1, 2023, Dr. Ben Veraart, an orthopaedic surgeon, passed away at the age of 92 in his hometown Hilversum, The Netherlands.

He followed his training as an orthopaedic surgeon with professor San Georgi in Nijmegen, who was the first professor of orthopaedics in the Netherlands. From 1974 until his retirement in 1986, he worked at the OLVG in Amsterdam, specializing in the spine. He was the founder of the multidisciplinary scoliosis team and one of the first practitioners in the Netherlands to perform scoliosis operations on children.

He trained many orthopaedic surgeons in Amsterdam and was known as a good trainer who left room for assistants and, for example, had assistants introduce new surgical techniques, which he followed with sincere interest.

He was also chairman of the Dutch Orthopedic Society (NOV) from 1976 until 1979.

He had many foreign contacts and was a very active member within SICOT, which resulted, among other things, in the chairmanship of the organizing committee of the SICOT world congress in 1996, which was held in Amsterdam. He led the committee impressively at the time, elegantly but directively. This resulted in a great congress which was opened by Beatrix the Queen of the Netherlands.

In addition, he was a member of the Editorial Board of International Orthopaedics for many years. At that time, it was customary to nominate a successor when leaving the board, and that is how I got involved in the journal in 2005.

He has been married to Hanneke, who died a couple of years ago. Together, they had five children, one of whom became a doctor.

Ben was an erudite person with, besides orthopaedics, a great interest in art and culture. Among other things, he was regularly present in the concert hall in Amsterdam where he enjoyed the music. May he rest in peace.

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