Biography - Lars Aabakken

Lars Aabakken

Lars Aabakken was born in Norway 1962. He graduated from Faculty of Medicine in Oslo 1986 and finished his thesis on GI side effects of NSAIDs in 1991. His gastroenterology fellowship was done at Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, where he also worked as attending gastroenterologist 1996-1998.

In 1995, he spent a year as visiting professor with Professor Peter Cotton, MUSC, Charleston SC, USA and professor Rob Hawes at the same institution.

From 1998,  he has been affiliated with Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo Norway, and as of 2002 as chief of GI endoscopy.  He is also associate professor of Medical Informatics at the Faculty of Medicine, University in Oslo.

His research work initially focused on drug-associated side effects in the GI tract, but has later expanded. Presently, the main present interest is related to documentation and imaging standards.  He has prepared Norwegian translations of the OMED terminology as well as the MST documents, and has been involved in the terminology work on the European level for a number of years. He also chaired the workgroup that developed the standard terminology for EUS, later to be inserted into the general terminology documents.

He has been executive editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology since 1997, and secretary general of the Scandinavian Association for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy since 1990, and is current president of this society.

He was elected councilor of the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in 2002 and chairman of the Education committee in 2004.

In 2005 he was elected councilor and chairman of the committee for documentation and standardization in OMED.