After having worked nearly 40 year in the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre Barto Otten (Theme Hormonal Regulation) is retiring, retiring but not tired.
Why that long period in only one place, why didn’t he take the opportunity to start another job elsewhere? Because, he says , working in the Radboud always has given me a lot of different opportunities and it takes a lot of time to start, proceed with and finish things.
He was standing at the beginning of a lot of initiatives that only rather recently have got their finishing touch .

In the early years he was very busy in Diabetes Care. His colleague Paediatric Endocrinologist moved to the general hospital to built up a Diabetes Clinic and recently both hospitals joined in the Nijmegen Diabetic Center.

Also from the very beginning was his interest in Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. He was the initiator of the neonatal screening of CAH in the Netherlands. Children with this condition in the mean time became healthy adults, and were referred to the colleagues of Adult Endocrinology (Endocrine Diseases) and  the cooperation with them resulted in two common PhD thesis and to the foundation of the Radboud Adrenal Center.

As one of the larger Paediatric Endocrine Centers in the Netherlands, the department spended a lot of time on GH treatment, with special interest for 3 syndromal conditions like Turner Syndrome, Noonan Syndrome and Prader Willi Syndrome, not only for their growth but for all the aspects of quality of life. This only could be done in good cooperation with the departments of Child Psychology en physical therapy . With regard to the care for Turner patients in the Netherlands Barto Otten was the incentive to the first mulltidisciplenary adult Turner patient outpatient clinic coordinated again by the department of Endocrine diseases, leading to an integrated continuous care over life time for these patient , a model which now is copied elsewhere in the Netherlands. A same initiative is now started for Prader Willi Syndrome.
In the mean time an endocrine paediatric network was founded doing consultations in 10 hospitals in the east and south of the Netherlands, bringing  advanced medical knowledge right to the patient.

As Otten says: there was and still is for my colleagues enough reason for staying in Nijmegen; the oldest city of the country. Indeed the three wise men came from the east (of the Netherlands).