Prof. Kostis Gyftopoulos

Brief Biography:

Kostis Gyftopoulos MD, PhD was born in Patras, Greece. He received his Medical Diploma in 1999 from the University of Patras Medical School. After serving as State General Practicioner for 1 year, he started his training in Surgery at the Egion Regional Hospital, Greece. He went on with training in Urology at the Department of Urology,Patras University Hospital and became Board Certified in Urology  in 1999. At the same time he completed his Doctoral Thesis on the evaluation of sex steroid receptors and retinoic acid receptors in benign hyperplasia and prostate cancer at the Anatomy and Urology Departments,University of Patras. He then completed a Clinical Fellowship in Paediatric Urology (European Urological Scholarship Programme) in Southampton University Hospital,UK. He worked as Senior Urologist for nine months in Chios General Hospital, Chios, Greece and for 6 months in the Dept. of Urology, 401 General Army Hospital, Athens, Greece. He then received another Clinical Fellowship Scholarship from European Society for Paediatric Urology at the Dept. of Paediatric Urology, Sophia Children’s Hospital,Rotterdam, NL. From 2002- 2005 he worked as Consultant Urological Surgeon in Protoclitos Clinic and from 2005- to date as Consultant Urological Surgeon, OLYMPION Hospital, Patras,Greece.

Academic positions:

11/2003 – 3/2006: Lecturer in Anatomy,University ofPatras Medical School

3/2006- to date:  Assistant Professor in Anatomy, University of Patras Medical School

2011 -to date: Associate Professor in Anatomy, University of Patras Medical School

Research interests:

• Prostate cancer and BPH (clinical and basic research).
• Andrology (clinical and basic research).
• Paediatric urology – congenital anomalies .
• Pelvic floor anatomy and dysfunction.

What I think of the idea behind WebmedCentral:

The current status of peer-review process in biomedical publication has pros and cons...However, reviewing an article is a job that should be taken very seriously. Anonymity may protect the reviewers but not the authors, whose work is left at the mercy of editors and reviewers. We all have come across moments when a nice piece of investigative work is rejected by a reviewer whose comments reveal a light-hearted approach...And the irony is that the same manuscript may be more than welcome in a similar or even more-esteemed journal!

Authors should be free to publish their work; sincere and open criticism by the scientific community will be eventually the true way of evaluating a scientific work (along with possible citations..). I sincerely hope that the concept of Webmed Central will allow a different approach of transparent scientific communication!