Willem A. Bemelman graduated as a surgeon in 1994 trained at the department of Surgery of the Academic Medical Hospital, University of Amsterdam and St. Lucas Hospital in Amsterdam. After his training as a surgeon, he worked at the department of Surgery at Leiden University Medical Center being responsible for the benign gastrointestinal disease. In 1999 he returned to the Academic Medical Center to develop the Minimal Invasive Surgery further. In 2006 he was appointed as a Professor in Surgery. Parallel to his appointment at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers, he worked parttime at the San Raffaele Ospedale in Milan form 2021-2022.

His field of interest in patient care and research is the (minimal invasive) treatment of IBD, colorectal cancer and complication surgery.

Bemelman is a EBSQ certified colorectal surgeon (Bologna 2005), the former president of the ESCP (2019-2020) and former secretary of ECCO (2018-2020). He has more than 675 pubmed papers, coached more than 50 PhD students and has a H-index of 79. He holds honorary memberships of 10 international societies, and is a member of the IOIBD and Europeans Surgical Association.

Currently he is working in the department of surgery of the Amsterdam University Medical Centers and parttime at Bento Surgical Clinics