The Founders' Story
Science and Sea
The Search for the Right Fit
For most of my career, I did what I was supposed to do. Law degree. Sales. Corporate events. I was good at it. But I never quite fit. I kept waiting for the moment when the career ladder would start to feel right. It never did.
What did feel right was this: loading a group of friends into a van, getting to a coastline, and making sure everyone had the time of their life on and off the water. I started organising kitesurf trips to Brazil and Cape Town in 2015, not as a business, just because I loved it and I was apparently good at it. Ten friends, four of them physicians. The sport was the starting point. Everything else followed from that.
The Spark
One of those physicians was Niels Tinga, a psychiatrist. He pulled me aside after one of those trips and told me I had a rare gift for this. Not just the logistics. The hosting. The way people felt around me. We started talking. What if we combined his world and mine? Medicine and kitesurfing. Science and the sea. That conversation never really ended.
Around the same time, I learned that an old study friend had quietly organised a CME course for his ENT colleagues in Tarifa. Mornings: accredited medical education. Afternoons: kitesurfing. It worked because he built it around something real, his own passion, instead of a conference room and a catering budget. Every physician who came had to give a talk. Before they knew it, they had a full scientific programme. I called him. Asked if I could use his idea. He said yes.
A third friend, also a physician, gave me one more piece of advice: if you are going to do this, become a kite instructor. Then it makes sense that it is you doing it.
Proof of Concept
So in 2020, I opened a kitesurfing school on the North Sea coast in Bergen aan Zee. Got my IKO certification. Feet in the sand. First time in my adult life I felt completely free. The school was never just a school. It was the proof of concept. The foundation that made everything that followed make sense.
Kite Doctors Today
Since our first edition, Niels has served as chair of the scientific committee. He is a practicing psychiatrist, and he treats the academic programme with the same rigour he applies to his clinical work. The modules cover cardiology, psychiatry, lifestyle medicine, burnout and physician wellbeing. Topics that matter in daily practice, not topics chosen because they are easy to fill.
Every edition is fully accredited through EACCME, the European standard for continuing medical education, recognised in over 20 countries and convertible to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits for US physicians. A Proven Track Record: Thirteen editions. Thirteen times accredited. No exceptions.
Niels handles the science. I handle everything else: the locations, the logistics, the experience, the community. We have never needed a contract to define that. It just works.
Looking Ahead: Bonaire 2027
Fourteen editions in, physicians from across Europe earn accredited CME credits at the world's best kite and wingfoil destinations. What started as a passion for kitesurfing has grown into something wider. Wingfoiling has taken over a serious part of our lives, and we actively look for physicians who share that same obsession, whether on a kite or a foil.
Bonaire 2027 is our fifteenth edition and our first in the Caribbean. It is also the first time we are specifically reaching out to physicians from the US and Canada. Not because the concept changed. Because the concept is finally ready for you.
The format works because it was not designed in a boardroom. It was built by two people who were done pretending that professional growth and personal passion had to live in separate worlds.
My biggest fear is ending up working for someone else again. That fear keeps the standard high.
John van Stolk and Niels Tinga, Founders Kite Doctors
