After completing his neurosurgical training in 1995 doctor de Jong was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon in the Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. During his work as a paediatric neurosurgeon he became especially interested in the treatment of newborns with spina bifida, not only in the medical aspects of this congenital malformation, but also in the moral and ethical ones.

About 5 years ago, he started to join in the national debate of active life-termination of these newborns in the Netherlands. He published several articles about this delicate and controversial subject, not only in newspapers, but also in national medical journals. In 2006 he was asked by the editor of Child’s Nervous System (the official journal of the International Society of Paediatric Neurosurgeons) to write an invited article about active life-termination of newborns with spina bifida, which was published on the internet in october 2007 and will be published in Child’s Nervous System in due time. This invited article is already received quite well by colleagues from all over the world and it will be used as a guideline for his presentation for the Congress.

Sophia Children’s Hospital, Erasmus Medical Centre, P.O.Box 2060, 3000 CB Rotterdam, The Netherlands

 Email: t.h.r.dejong@erasmusmc.nl