Capt. (Ret.) Ari Leppäniemi, MD, PhD, FACS (Hon.), FISS, DMCC

Dr. Leppäniemi is the retired chief of emergency surgery at the Helsinki University Hospital in Meilahti, Finland. His background training includes general and gastroenterological surgery with subsequent training and diplomas in prehospital medicine, emergency medicine, disaster medicine and international healthcare.

He has worked as a field surgeon for the International Red Cross during civil wars in Cambodia, Sudan, and Afghanistan, a volunteer surgeon for the United Nations Development Programme in Tuvalu, and a senior house officer for the Department of Community Medicine in Zaria, Nigeria.

Dr. Leppäniemi is a past-president of the European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES), Finnish Society of Surgery, International Association for Trauma Surgery and Intensive Care (IATSIC), and Ambroise Pare International Military Surgery Forum (APIMSF); he is the current president of the International Society of Surgery (ISS/SIC).

He holds honorary fellowship in the ACS, American Surgical Association, European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery, Finnish Society of Surgery, Finnish Trauma Association, and Finnish Society for Digestive Surgery; in 2014, he was appointed as Surgeon of the Year by the Finnish Surgical Society.

Dr. Leppäniemi has published more than 300 original articles, more than 350 review articles, book chapters and dissertations, and more than 100 editorials, letters, commentaries and other articles, as well as given 850 lectures and abstracts, mostly on abdominal trauma, acute pancreatitis and abdominal compartment syndrome. He has served as the editor-in-chief of the Scandinavian Journal of Surgery, editor of the European Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery, and associate editor of the World Journal of Surgery and World Journal of Emergency Surgery.