Monika Ostensen

Professor Monika Østensen has gained her medical degree 1971 at the School of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Germany. She got her board certification in Rheumatology in Tromsö, Norway in 1979. She was a research fellow at the Health Science Center, University of Texas studying modulation of natural killer cell function in 1986. She has been Professor of Rheumatology and Head of the Department of Rheumatology at the University Hospital of Trondheim Norway from 1991 - 99.

In Trondheim she founded the Centre for Mothers with Rheumatic Disease in 1991. From November 1999 until October 2009, she was head of the Centre for Preconceptional Counselling and Pregnancy in Patients with Rheumatic Diseases at the University Hospital of Bern, Switzerland. She has retired from this position, and is now consultant for the High Risk Pregnancy Unit, Department of Rheumatology, at the Sörlandet Hospital, Kristiansand, Norway. Her main research has focused on the effect of pregnancy on rheumatic disease, immunology of pregnancy and therapy during pregnancy and lactation. She has published many articles in international medical journals, chapters in books and patient information on these issues.