Dutch surgeon, gynaecologist and professor of surgery from 1937-1965 at Groningen.
Eerland was the son of a school teacher in Rotterdam who moved in 1905 with his family to the Dutch East Indies to teach. In 1910 Eerland was sent back to Rotterdam to visit the Gymnasium. After that he studied medicine at Utrecht. He became a physician at young age in 1921 and specialised in gynaecology and surgery. He studied the skills of many surgeons in different places. He graduated 12 October 1926 under A. J. P. van den Broek at Utrecht on molar pregnancy: “Mola hydatidosa, mola destruens en chorionepithelomia malignum”.
After finishing his study he went back to the Dutch Indies: first to Batavia, and then for years in the small village Paree (East Java) where he energetically did all kinds of surgery. Meanwhile he shared his knowledge with other surgeons on the isle, and so his reputation as a hard working, practical and brilliant generalist in surgery even leaked to Groningen University.
On 13 October 1937 he was unexpectedly elected as Professor of general surgery in Groningen. Unexpected, as he was a not academic outsider from a small village from the other side of the world. But he had tons of practical experience, insight and gifted hands. Not bothered by the academic criticism he started his practical surgery job and held his first speech “Over de betekenis der voorzorg in de heelkunde” (About the meaning of precaution in surgery) and his last speech on 18 June 1965 “Chirurgie van vandaag en morgen” (Surgery of today and tomorrow) when he retired. He got many international awards for his work on surgery and made Groningen a pioneering centre in Chest surgery in the fifties.
He died 29 June 1977 in Groningen