Cornelis W M van Veelen

It is with great sadness that we report the death of our colleague, friend and teacher, Professor Cornelis Willem Marinus (“Kees”) van Veelen, who passed away on September 30, 2025.

Following Latin high school Kees, in the footsteps of his father, an ophthalmologist, studied medicine at the University of Utrecht, followed by a specialisation in Neurosurgery under supervision of professor Hugo Verbiest. Clinical and scientific work on brain tumours and their biomarkers resulted in a PhD degree in 1979.

Van Veelen’s main interest turned out functional neurosurgery and stereotaxy. Following an early fellowship with Jaques Taillarac and Jean Banceaud in Paris, he intended to start a stereotactic program in Utrecht. Verbiest, however, had misgivings about the risks of the French methods and suggested that a national expertise team should be created to create new methodologies and supervise all clinical cases.

Thus in 1971 the Dutch Task Force on Physio-surgery was constituted, resulting in an alternative intracranial EEG method with a fan of electrode strips and intracerebral leads through burr holes. This was supported by in-house development of subdural and intracerebral electrodes. Initially clinical interest focussed primarily on psychosurgery but in the mid-seventies this shifted to epilepsy surgery when UK trained Colin Binnie joined the group. Video-EEG monitoring of surgical candidates was introduced by him in the epilepsy centre ‘Meer & Bosch’ in Heemstede. In the 1980ties the program evolved into the Collaborative Dutch Epilepsy Surgery Program, with representatives from all three Dutch epilepsy clinics, Utrecht and eventually also the neurosurgery departments of Maastricht University and the Free University of Amsterdam. In the early 1990ties Van Veelen, together with clinical neurophysiologists prof. Alexander van Huffelen and the first of the undersigned, coordinated a clinical scientific project that convinced the Dutch health authorities to include epilepsy surgery in standard health insurance coverage, when performed under the aegis of the national program. At that time Prof. Onno van Nieuwenhuizen joined the team to increasingly include children as well. A new generation of neurosurgeons was trained by Van Veelen who in 1989 was appointed professor of Functional Neurosurgery in Utrecht. He remained the neurosurgical face and hand in the national program until his formal retirement in 2003 - by which time over 100 surgeries were performed every year.

Kees was exceptionally keen to work together with and rely on the neurologists, clinical neurophysiologists and neuropsychologists who had first seen and investigated the patients. He was a man of great conscience, who made decisions after considering all aspects, including risks, with the patient and caregivers. Van Veelen authored or co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications, including some book chapters.

Outside his profession he was a great outdoor sportsman, enjoying (mountain) walking, skating, skiing and sailing. He had a great love for and knowledge of history, music, literature and art, all of which, as a great teller of stories, he loved to share with his colleagues, friends and students. He also was a deeply religious man, without any tendency for preaching or converting.
Despite increasing medical problems during his last months and facing inevitable death he remained positive and socially active, inviting friends and colleagues to visit him and his wife at home, up to the last few days.

Kees is survived by his lifelong wife Anne-Catherine, three children - one daughter also a neurosurgeon - and a lovely set of grandchildren, all of whom miss him dearly.

So do we.

Walter van Emde Boas.
Frans Leijten