Prof. Jan MULIER
Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology,
Intensive care and Emergency Care,
AZ Sint Jan Brugge-Oostende in Bruges, Belgium

Prof Dr. Jan Paul J. Mulier is chairman of the department of Anesthesiology, Intensive care and Emergency Care at the AZ Sint Jan Brugge-Oostende in Bruges, Belgium. Mulier holds a specialization in Anesthesiology, Intensive and Emergency Care from the KUL; he was a visiting resident at the Anesthesiology department UCSF in San Francisco, California. In 1989 he served as a researcher for paired pacing at Medtronic, Inc, at Minneapolis, and got an MBA at Vlerick in the management of research and innovation. He introduced trans esophageal echocardiography in Belgium 1985 and became a dedicated cardiac anesthesiologist studying also the physiology of pulse wave propagation. He organized training in TEE (Christmas Echo course) from 1990 till 2012 for Belgium and Dutch anesthesiologists. In 1994, he obtained his PhD in Biomedical Sciences (KUL in collaboration with Penn University) with the invention of a non-linear mathematical model of the cardiac pump function coupled to the linear arterial model of Westerhof. Obesity and anesthesia became his second research topic. He has been president and founder of the ESPCOP (European society for perioperative care of the obese patient) and active in the ESA scientific subcommittees. Early on he realized that anesthesia is more than putting a patient safely asleep. Anesthesiologists can also improve the surgical outcome by managing the anesthesia not only peri operatively but also intra operatively and improve the surgical results.

His research today is frequently focused on practical engineering improvements for surgery and anesthesia. The results of his Research area’s today were first used in the clinic for bariatric anesthesia but got a broader interest in other area’s as well: 1) Deep neuromuscular blockade in laparoscopic surgery: when do you need it, how to achieve it and how to reverse it. It is all based on his abdominal compliance model. 2) Impact of laparoscopy on peritoneal inflammation and how to reduce it. 3) Lung Protective Ventilation (LPV) of morbid obese patient: value of permissive hypercapnia, Peep & Lung recruitment, cpap, Flow controlled ventilation, need for oxygen therapy and how preventing atelectasis, silent aspiration, ventilator induced lung injury. 4) Opioid free general anesthesia as a method to enhance recovery after surgery (ERAS) and reduce systemic inflammatory reactions on surgical stress. 5) Improving the surgical outcome and the operating room efficiency as ananesthesiologist.

Since 2010, he performs most general anesthesia’s totally opioid free (his third research topic now) using an intravenous sympathetic block combined with inhalation or intravenous anesthesia. He stopped using TIVA based on Remifentanyl given the many side effects of these short acting opioids. Many anesthesiologists from around the world visit him in Bruges to follow live cases and follow this new trend. A clinical observation program in Anesthesia (CAPE) with live cases is organized every month attended by anesthesiologists from over the world.

Jan Mulier is well known as an anesthesiologist in Belgium, Europe and world-wide for several topics. He has a network not only with anesthesiologists but also with surgeons and medical companies who are eager to get his advice in new developments.