He was born in 1935 in Ljubljana, where he attended elementary school and grammar school. Upon graduation from grammar school in 1953 he enrolled at the Medical Faculty of Ljubljana, where he was granted the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1959. He completed afterwards a one-year military service. In the following year he worked as a general practitioner in Ajdovščina for six months. He then obtained (1961) a residency position in the Orthopedic Hospital in Valdoltra where he started his training in orthopedic surgery. In 1964 he obtained a residency position in the University Surgical Hospital in Ljubljana, switching from orthopedic surgery to the field of general surgery. Here he completed his residency training and successfully passed the board examination in 1967. Since then he has been working as a surgeon at the Division of Gastroenterologic Surgery (later renamed University Department of Abdominal Surgery, University Medical Centre Ljubljana). In 1974 he attained his master's degree and in 1980 he successfully defended his doctorate thesis at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana. From 1967 to 2001 he performed the entire program of duties as a specialist surgeon (and later as consultant surgeon) at the University Department of Abdominal Surgery, UMC Ljubljana. From 1976 he held at the same time the position of Head of the Division of General Surgery, which later expanded in programme and size and was renamed: University Surgical Infection Department, UMC Ljubljana). From 2002 to 2010 he worked in this Department as a Consultant surgeon. From 1996 to 2014, in his spare time, he operated hernias once a week at the private Medical Centre IATROS in Ljubljana.
He has completed his studies in Poland, Germany, England, Scotland, the USA, Austria and Italy. Since 1981 he has been teaching at the Faculty of Medicine in Ljubljana, initially as an assistant professor, then as associate professor and since 1992 as a full professor of surgery. After retiring in 2010, he taught surgical lectures to medicine students until 2014. He held the following functions in the bodies of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana: from 1991 to 1995 he was a member of the Personnel Commission, from 1995 to 1999 its chairman and from 1999 to 2002 the chairman of the Habilitation Commission. From 1993 to 1996 he was Vice-Chairman of the Human Resources Committee of the University of Ljubljana. In 1996 the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia awarded him the title of Senior Councillor.
His bibliography includes over 200 professional and scientific articles and 24 chapters in textbooks and professional books published at home or abroad. He is a member of numerous domestic and foreign professional associations: Slovenian Medical Association, from which he was chairman of the Expert Commission from 1991 to 1996 and founder and chairman of the sections: Slovenian Wound Healing Association from 2001 to 2013 and Slovenian Hernia Association from 2004 to 2010. In 1996 he was elected an honorary member of the Slovenian Medical Association and in 2012 an honorary member of the Association of Surgeons of Slovenia. He was also elected a member of the following foreign professional associations: the British Paediatric Surgery Association, the Collegium Internationale Chirurgiae Digestivae, the Association Francaise de Chirurgie, the Surgical Infection Society and the European Hernia Association. He has lectured and participated in numerous congresses, symposia and roundtables at home and abroad. He organized and chaired three Symposia on Wounds with International Participation in Ljubljana in 2000, 2001 and 2002. He also chaired three Slovenian Symposiums and Workshops on Hernia surgery with International Participation in 2004 in Ptuj, in 2006 in Nova Gorica and in 2008 in Slovenj Gradec.
His main focus is the surgical treatment of diseases of the abdominal organs, of the superficial tissues and of surgical infections. He paid particular attention to the appropriate approach in the surgical treatment of some rare and life-threatening infections, especially of the necrotizing fasciitis and of the deep ulcers and gangrenous changes in ischaemic defects. He introduced in Slovenia and modified the tension-free hernioplasty. In addition to focusing on surgical procedures, he also focused on antibiotic antimicrobial treatment and prophylaxis in surgical procedures. He introduced the following original treatment methods: "drainage excision" in superficial tissue abscesses, surgery for acute purulent tenosynovitis with three excisions, dome-shaped amputation in the angiopathic and neuropathic foot, antibiotic oral surgical prophylaxis (which was accepted as a doctrine by the International Society of Surgery) and its own modification of the inguinal Sutureless Tension-free Hernioplasty. He was the first in the former Jugoslavia to introduce antibiotic parenteral prophylaxis in colorectal, biliary and gastroduodenal surgery. In 1994 he was the first in Slovenia to start inguinal hernia surgery by the Lichtenstein procedure, but already in the following year he switched to the seamless method, initially using the Gilbert technique, but then he modified it according to his own idea. He has lectured on the experience and success of the mentioned above procedures at numerous symposia and congresses at home and abroad. Of these, the most significant were 1983 in Vienna, 1985 in Cairo and in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, 1986 in Prague and Bratislava, 1987 in Milan, 1989 in Strasbourg and in Toronto, 1990 in Sidney and in Berlin, 1991 in Moscow, in Leningrad and in Lisbon and Stockholm, 1992 in Nairobi, 1993 in Hong Kong, 1994 in Luzern, 1995 in Freiburg and in Gdansk, 1996 in Seoul, 1997 in Gdansk, 1998 in Buenos Aires and in Madrid, 2000 in Holland (Nijmegen) and in Singapore, 2001 in Amsterdam, 2002 in Hong Kong, 2004 in Equador (Quito), 2005 in Torino, 2007 in Athens, 2008 in Sevilla and in 2009 in Berlin and in Bulgaria (Pleven).
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