NRS Swierenga Medal

This year, Professor Harry Groen from the University Medical Center Groningen won the Swierenga Penning. The decisive reasons for him winning the medal were: 1. Professor Groen has played an important role in the initiation of "NVALT studies". This concept of nationwide studies from a unified field of healthcare professionals, unique for lung diseases, has yielded more than 25 practice-oriented oncology studies of high scientific quality over many years. The studies have led to an important improvement of quality in healthcare, both nationally as well as internationally. Professor Groen's studies have also been proven to be a useful model for studies in other lung disciplines such as interstitial lung diseases. 2. Professor Groen has an impressive and stable scientific output over several decades. He is (co-) author of more than 350 peer-reviewed publications, has an H-index of 58 and is surprisingly often the last author. 3. With his enthusiasm and expertise, professor Groen has also managed to bring a lot of difficult files (including reimbursements from 'de basiszorg' for new treatments for lung cancer) to a good end. In addition, he has played a very important role for many years as a national advisor to KWF, insurers and policy makers. In this he has made a very distinctive social contribution to the development of lung oncology care nationwide.