[Harry Dorchy and pediatric diabetology]

"Monsieur Le Professor Harry Dorchy is retiring". He has had a brilliant 40 year career since receiving his medical degree from the Free University of Brussels in 1969 and his PhD--entitled " Contribution a l'etude du diabète de l'enfant et de l'adolescent "--in 1981 from the same illustrious university. He had the great fortune to connect with his mentor, Professor Helmut Jean Loeb, and for many years, the two of them cared for young people with diabetes in Brussels and worked closely to establish a remarkable legacy of clinical care, research and innovative thinking about how young children in Belgium--in fact, around the world--, ought to be considered and treated. At the moment of his official retirement, he has an active patient census of 792 patients, 442 under the age of 18 years, at the Queen Fabiola University Children's Hospital in Brussels. As a member of the Hvidoere International Study Group on Childhood Diabetes, Dr Dorchy's patients have the great honor of being the most successful study cohort: those with the lowest (ie. best) levels of hemoglobin A1c. And they do so without excessive hypoglycemia! Dr Dorchy has had 490 publications as an author in his scientific career, 335 as first author. Dr Dorchy's research has complemented his superb work as a clinician : screening for subclinical complications, normal and flexible diet, physical activity, glycemic control and insulin treatment, quality of life, genetics and immunology, specific types of diabetes, etc. Since 1996, with his pediatric diabetologist comrade, Professor Stuart Brink from Boston, he has traveled annually to Romania to help organize, administer and teach at an annual ISPAD-Timisoara Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes Post-Graduate Course with Professor Viorel Serban.