Personal information
Biography
Alexandra Papadopoulou is the Chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Hepatology of the First Department of Pediatrics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and of the Department of Gastroenterology of the Athens Children's Hospital "Agia Sofia".
She specialized in pediatric gastroenterology at the Institute of Child Health, University of Birmingham, in the UK from 1991 to 1994. She holds an M.D. from the University of Birmingham, UK, and is an Honorary Professor of Pediatrics at the St. Petersburg Medical Pediatric University. She has over 100 publications in medical journals, over 150 presentations at medical congresses, and over 200 invited lectures. Five research studies have received awards. She is a member of 7 international and Greek scientific societies and a founding member of the Hellenic Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (HELSPGHAN), of which she was President from 2015-2017 and from 2019-2021.
She is a member of ESPGHAN (elected in 1998), on behalf of which organized the following summer schools and postgraduate courses: the ESPGHAN Nutrition Summer School in 2005, attended by participants from 26 countries; the ESPGHAN Gastroenterology Summer School in 2010, attended by participants from 24 countries; the first ESPGHAN Postgraduate Course on Practical Techniques in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2016, attended by participants from 25 countries; the ESPGHAN Endoscopy hands-on Course in 2017; the ESPGHAN Gastroenterology Summer School in Athens in 2018; the ESPGHAN Endoscopy hands-on Course in Athens in 2019; and the first ESPGHAN Monothematic Conference on Eosinophilic GI Diseases in 2021. In 2016, she was the chair of LOC of the 49th Annual Meeting of ESPGHAN in Athens and a member of the ESPGHAN Council from 2015-2016.
From 2011 to 2017 she was Education Secretary of the ESPGHAN Committee on Gastroenterology. From 2013 to 2016, she was appointed as a member of the ESPGHAN Public Affairs Committee. In 2015, she was elected as a member of the Executive Committee of the Network of National Societies for 2015-2017. She was the coordinator of a global survey on pediatric gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition training in Europe, in which 100 European PGHN training centers from 19 countries participated.
Over the past decade, she has co-authored numerous ESPGHAN guidelines and position papers on various GI topics. In 2014, she co-authored the ESPGHAN subspecialty training curriculum and logbook. She is currently the Chair of the ESPGHAN Working Group on Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders. She was the first author of the ESPGHAN practice guidelines on EoE, published in 2014, and the first author of the Joint ESPGHAN/NASPGHAN Guidelines on Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders beyond EoE, due to be published in 2023.
In Greece, she has been a member of the National Nutrition Committee of the Greek Ministry of Health since 2017, on whose behalf she coordinated the 2018 update of the National Guide on Supplementary Feeding. She also chaired the subcommittee for the national guideline on prescribing home parenteral nutrition in children.
From 2014-2015, she was a member of the Greek Ministry of Health Committee for Pediatric Subspecialties. From 2017 to 2019, she was a member of the Committee of the Central Health Council of the Greek Ministry of Health for the Specialization in Pediatrics and co-author of the updated Five-Year Training Program in Pediatrics, Curriculum and Logbook. She was a member of the Institute for Scientific Research of the Greek Medical Association from 2017 to 2019 and a member of the Committee for Subspecialization in PGHN from 2022.