Dr. Erwin Dhondt

Dr. Erwin Dhondt joined Velico Europe in July 2026 as a Board Advisor.

A retired general of the Belgian Armed Forces Medical Corps, Erwin is a military MD board certified in internal medicine and both emergency & disaster and intensive care medicine. Erwin has a very broad professional experience: from working in a range of academic and military hospitals, caring for the most critical ill patients, in peacetime as well as on the military battlefield (Balkans, DRC, Lebanon, …) to hospital management and health governance. In addition to operational care he has at the same time become an expert in ‘left of bang’ medicine from a preventative and integrative health perspective.

As the past director general ‘Health & Well-being’ in the Defence Staff (2019-2021), general Erwin acted as the advisor to the CHOD on military health and healthcare policy including preventive medicine and occupational health and safety. In that position, he designed among others the national defence health policy in the battle against SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19. Before that he was the director ‘Specialized Medical Support to Operations’ in the Staff of the Medical Component ‘Operational Command’ and assistant medical director of the Military Hospital Queen Astrid in Brussels. In addition, he worked there as a senior staff member in the Burn Unit and subsequently led the Military Emergency & Disaster Medical Services as department head.

Simultaneously with his military career, dr. Erwin was invited to be the co-director of the department of ‘Emergency and Disaster Medicine’ at the University Hospital of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and chaired the ‘Research Group of Emergency and Disaster Medicine’ (ReGEDiM) of the Faculty of Medicine of the same university (2008-2012). Prior to this he served for 14 years as a senior consultant physician in the Emergency Department of the University Hospital of the Catholic University of Leuven. Beyond his clinical leadership responsibilities, he was actively engaged in a range of strategic healthcare management and hospital governance initiatives.

Erwin maintains excellent relations within the NATO medical community. Until 2022 he was the chairman of both the NATO COMEDS ‘Emergency Medicine Panel’ & ‘Prehospital Care Improvement Initiative Task Force’, and as such also very much engaged in among others Blood & Transfusion Policy, SOF Medicine, and CBRNe medical management. From these positions he was one of the driving forces behind NATO’s ‘COMEDS Futures Advisory Board’ (CFAB), ‘Trauma Registry Users Group’, and ‘Smart Defence Project 1.1045 on the Alliances Bio-Responsiveness’. A member of the Scientific Committee of the Royal Higher Institute for Defence – a Belgian “think tank” for security and defence – he contributed to the establishment of the annual medical scientific research program and the subsequent evaluation of its implementation in the Armed Forces.

Throughout his career Erwin has been holding appointments on multiple national civil committees and boards as well, including the Brussels Capital Regional Committee for Emergency Medical Care, the Ministry of Public Health Steering Board for the H1N1 Flu Pandemic Hospital Business Continuity Planning, the Medical Committee of the Belgian Red Cross Humanitarian Services Department. Until 2020 he was the vice-chairman of the Belgian Federal Council for Emergency Medical Care.Erwin has been affiliate faculty for the European Master of Disaster Medicine (EMDM) holding from 2008 till 2012 a position as visiting professor at the Universita degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale in Vercelli (Italy) and at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium). Until 2019, he was also visiting professor in emergency and disaster medicine at the University College Leuven (Belgium).

He has authored several dozen national and international articles, in all domains of emergency and military medical care, health leadership and management published in Acta clinica Belgica, BMJ Military Health, Chest, Critical Care, Critical Care Medicine, European Military Medical Services, European Journal of Emergency Medicine, Frontiers in Public Health, Journal of Bronchology, Journal of Medical Systems, New Trends in Computer Sciences, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, PloS Currents, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, Resuscitation, Thorax etc. and delivered at least hundred invited lectures around the world. He served as a reviewer for the European Journal of Emergency Medicine, the Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, and the Belgian Journal of Medicine and Health.

He also organized several conferences, such as the hybrid event for the 44th ICMM World Congress on Military Medicine in September 2021, marking the 100th anniversary of the International Committee of Military Medicine.

With a particular interest in healthcare architecture, hospital redevelopment and the re-engineering of care processes and clinical workflows, especially within emergency departments, he was the driving force – working in close collaboration with specialised architectural and healthcare design firms – behind the conception and design of the new emergency departments of two university hospitals and one of Belgium’s largest private hospitals.

Today, general Erwin chairs the annual International Conference on Disaster and Military Medicine (DiMiMED) and he is the editor-in-chief of the European Military Medical Services magazine (EMMS 2026). He is a senior fellow at the abovementioned Royal Higher Institute for Defence (RHID) and in that context he serves on the editorial board of the Belgian Military Journal.

Erwin is a welcome keynote speaker and moderator at conferences and seminars and delivers services of consultancy in all the abovementioned domains as an independent advisor in Defence Health & Healthcare and Health Security, inspirator, sparring partner or co-creator.

A Belgian national, Erwin is fluent in Dutch, French and English.