A farewell to Dominique Vervoort

Dear friends of Atlantis,

Dear customers,

Dear therapists,

We have some very sad news to share, which has affected us deeply: Jozef's son, Dominique, passed away on Monday, February 16, 2026, at the age of 31.

Astrid's brother was unexpectedly diagnosed with skin cancer about a year and a half ago. Treatment began immediately, as Dominique was determined to overcome the disease. As a doctor, his faith in medical science was strong and unshakeable. Unfortunately, it turned out that he had to fight an unequal battle against an extremely aggressive form of cancer that had immediately spread to his glands and back. Sadly, even surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy were unable to contain the cancer. The cancer spread so quickly that metastases also appeared in his leg, bones, blood, brain, and liver.

In recent months, he fought modestly, serenely, but nonetheless with great courage and determination to get better again. The family was able to celebrate one last Christmas together in Sint-Truiden, sharing warm moments with his friends. When it became clear that help was needed on the spot, Jozef, Marie-Jeanne, and Astrid traveled to Toronto to support him. They were able to be together as a family until the very end, surrounded by the love of his family and his girlfriend Mimi. With him, we have lost not only a son, brother, and friend, but also someone who used his knowledge to strive for a better world. Someone who had already achieved a great deal at a young age and was still determined to make a difference in this world.

Dominique currently studied in Canada and obtained several degrees: MD (Doctor of Medicine), MPH (Master of Public Health), MBA (Master of Business Administration).

He was a PhD candidate in Health Systems Research and a Vanier Scholar at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. In his doctoral research, Dominique focuses on the assessment of health technologies and access to cardiac surgery in Canada. For his early doctoral research, he received the Dr. Jack V. Tu Memorial Award for Excellence.

Dominique was working on an MSt in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, where he is researching the ethics of resource allocation for access to heart surgery worldwide. He earned his MD from KU Leuven and his combined MPH/MBA degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School as a Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation. He was inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health in recognition of his global and public health work during the pandemic. Dominique completed the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship at the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, where he worked on national plans for surgery, obstetrics, and anesthesia (NSOAPs) in Pakistan and West Africa, and on scaling up cardiac surgery care in low- and middle-income countries.

Dominique introduced the concept of global cardiac surgery into the literature and founded the Global Cardiac Surgery Initiative to advocate for the nearly six billion people worldwide who lack access to cardiac surgical care. Clinically, as an aspiring cardiac surgeon, his interests lay in the outcomes of aortic and congenital heart surgery and the disparities in access to cardiac care. Dominique was recognized as a Cardiovascular Clinical Trialists (CVCT)/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Future Trialist Fellow ('22-'23) and as a World Health Federation Emerging Leader ('22-'23). In 2023, Dominique received the Outstanding Service Award from the African Association of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons for his work in global cardiac surgery.

He was also co-founder, former president, and former board member of InciSioN - International Student Surgical Network, the world's largest international organization for surgical interns with over 8,000 members in more than 100 countries. He has given lectures and led workshops on youth engagement in international surgery at conferences around the world and has represented the voice of interns in international surgery at key forums, such as the World Health Assembly, the United Nations General Assembly, and the Universal Health Coverage Forum.

He has served as an advisor to the Global Surgery Foundation, an advisor to the Johns Hopkins Global Surgery Initiative, a member of the medical advisory board of the Global Alliance for Rheumatic and Congenital Hearts, and co-founder of the Gender Equity Initiative in Global Surgery. Dominique has written extensively on inequality and gender disparities in global health and surgery. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the BMJ, JAMA, Al Jazeera, Devex, MedPage Today, and leading surgical journals. He has published more than 25 opinion pieces and over 250 scientific articles and has given more than 70 lectures at national and international conferences.

It is with deep sadness and great dismay that we announce the passing of Dominique. This is something we will never truly get over, but as Dominique himself said: he wanted to be remembered and leave a lasting impression. We mourn his passing deeply, but we are proud of who he was and remember him with a smile and a heart full of love.