Paediatric gastroenterologist Professor Marc Benninga. Prof Benninga or Marc as he prefers to be called, studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. After receiving his Medical degree he worked as a research fellow at the department of paediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He performed extensive research on constipation and faecal incontinence in childhood. Subsequently he was trained in paediatrics at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital in Utrecht, The Netherlands. After his paediatric training he performed research at The Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide, Australia with Geoff Davidson and Taher Omari. During his stay in Adelaide his research focussed on maturation of upper gastrointestinal motility in very young infants. In 1999 he became a staff member in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam and currently he is the head of the department paediatric gastroenterology & Nutrition. The focus of his current clinical and research work is gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, recurrent abdominal pain, constipation, functional non-retentive faecal incontinence and inflammatory bowel disease in childhood. He also played in the Dutch National hockey team and competed at the Olympics in 1988, Seoul.

In todays podcast episode we had a really interesting conversation about pediatric functional abdominal pain, childhood constipation, and fecal incontinence diagnosis and treatments. We even talked about his interest and research in Gut Directed hypnotherapy. Lots and lots to learn. I hope my talk with Marc as interesting and helpful as I did. Please you enjoy my talk with Prof Marc Benninga.