Dr. Robert Gorter travelled to Bologna and Florence in Italy from December 2nd through 5th, 2010, to lecture at the art therapy school “Stella Maris” (Scuola di Luca) in Bologna.

This picture was taken during a quick lunch brake at a local restaurant around the corner of the school building with Carla and Francesco, and a student guest, named Mani, from Pakistan.

The art therapy school Stella Maris is a spring off from the art therapy school Scuola di Luca in Florence which was founded by Robert Gorter (as the medical specialist) and Mrs. Fiorenza De Angelis (as the leading artist for painting) in 1993. Scuola di Luca was carried by a non-profit, tax-exempt foundation.
Unfortunately, as a complication of many years of heavy smoking, Fiorenza experienced several bouts of deep vein thrombosis and once lung emboli which did not keep her from smoking. Then, in 2006, she experienced another massive embolus with a stroke (brain infarct), and left her paralyzed.

Since then, she has not been able to work in any form, and the school entered in quite a disarray: ignoring the legal status of the school as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization, two of her daughters, and the De Angelis family at large, got involved in a kind of “succession war” and Robert Gorter had to withdraw as faculty member.

Therefore, Robert Gorter joined one of the early and most promising students of Scuola di Luca in Florence, Mrs. Carla Borri, to set up a second school for art therapy in Bologna (Stella Maris, or “Scuola di Formazione in Arte Terapia del Colore”).

Also, Robert Gorter went one day to Florence to meet the interior designer Mr. Ilio De Fillipis, to discuss plans and design options for new clinics-to-come.
Ilio De Fillippis has designed and built houses and mansions in California (Hollywood) and in many locations in Asia and Europe.

Here, Dr. Robert Gorter has been captured with his students for art therapy in Bologna on Sunday, December 5th, 2010. All the way to the right is Francesco Settani, who translated simultaneously from English into Italian

Dr. Robert Gorter visited New Zealand from July 2nd through 12th, 2009, to meet with various colleagues and groups of people in the medical field and faculty members of the University of Auckland, the capital of New Zealand, active in the field of internal medicine, oncology and infectious diseases.  

Robert Gorter was accompanied by Mr. Dawood Khan most of the time. Mr. Dawood is a long-time friend and a Pakistani citizen from Lahore. Dawood grew up in Australia and is now finishing up his education in business administration. He was very helpful to Robert Gorter in sorting things out like addresses and finding the way by car or public transportation. Also, he has offered to translate the website of Medical Center Cologne in Urdu, the main language spoken in Pakistan.  

Most helpful was Dr. Roger Leitch from Auckland and his wife Gertrude. Gertrude is a registered nurse from Austria and met Roger Leitch during his training in Anthroposophical Medicine at the Ita Wegman Klinik in Arlesheim in Switzerland. She still speaks German with a strong Austrian accent. During his stay, Gertrude organized several dinners at their house to make it easier for Robert Gorter to meet with new friends, other colleagues and therapists.  

On two different occasions, Robert Gorter visited the Anthroposophical Society in Auckland, and met besides members of the Society also the local curative eurythmist, another doctor besides Dr. Leitch and Gertrude, another registered nurse and two art therapists at the newly renovated building of the Auckland Anthroposophical branch.  

At one occasion, Robert Gorter was invited for dinner to the house of Dr. Roger Leitch and his wife Gertrude (who is an excellent cook)  to meet several members of the Anthroposophical Society to get introduced and plan future collaborations.  

At the last evening of Robert Gorter’s stay, a dinner meeting had been organized at the house of Prof. Mark Thomas and his wife Mimi,  who is a Family Practitioner herself. Their son Sam cooked a delicious vegan biodynamic dinner. At the diner table, possible future  projects were discussed and outlined.  Dr. Gorter will most likely still return to New Zealand before the end of 2009.  

Robert Gorter, MD, PhD., visited Casablanca in Morocco for the first time from March 20th through 24th, 2009, to establish connections with the University of Casablanca and their center for Oncology at the university hospital. In the summer of 2008, contacts had been made by a family member of the Royal Family with Robert Gorter, and who came to Cologne to discuss a possible collaboration with the Medical Center Cologne (MCC) and the University of Casablanca. Four possible areas of collaboration were then discussed:

1.setting up medical services as offered by MCC in an existing hospital in Casablanca;
2.offer training for medical doctors and other health care profesionals in the areas of expertise of MCC in Germany;
3.establish clinical research unit at the University of Casablanca, or another appropriate medical institution in Morocco;
4.support in establishing a master's and a PhD program for brilliant Moroccan research fellows at MCC with the help of scolarships from the Deutsche Akademische Austausch Dienst (DAAD).
Not till March 2009, secondary to an overload of work, Dr. Gorter was able to travel to Morocco.

Robert Gorter was accompanied by Abdellatif Benalla (Foto) von Abdellatif Benalla Dr.Robert Gorter in front of the University of Casablancafor translation and support in local travel (avoid fights with taxi drivers about the fare).

Abdellatif Benalla is a lawyer and speaks several langauges. Abdellatif was a perfect host and in between meetings, he showed Robert Gorter the city, including the third largest Mosque in the world, the King Hassan II Mosque .

Very likely, in the future, Abdellatif will function as the private secretary of Dr. Gorter in Morocco.

It was told by the tour guide inside the mosque that King Hassan II had spent about 800 million US dollars out of his oqn pocket to built this mosque, bearing his name.

Abellatif was a perfect host who took good care of Dr. Gorter, and each day, they walked for hours nonstop through the city


Robert Gorter visited the University Hospital of Casablanca and its Center for Oncology ( The head of this center is Professor Abdellatif Benider, a very gentle man who received Robert Gorter more than friendly. )

It was there decided to organize a workshop for staff and professors, and give a guest lecture for medical students on dendritic cells in the oncologic patient and stem cells for tissue repair.

Most likely, Robert Gorter's next visit to Morocco will take place early May of 2009.

Robert Gorter, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and Director of the Medical Center Cologne in Germany, visited the annual conference organized by the American Society for Clinical Research (ASCO) in Atlanta from June 1st through June 6th, 2006.

Dr. Gorter is an ASCO member and has been going to this ‘Mecca’ for oncologists since 2002. Besides that he has presented data of own studies before, one of the major reasons for Dr. Gorter to attend is to see what other colleagues are doing and to take note of new developments.

Also, meeting people in between sessions and at lunch time is a very important way to do networking. Meetings like the ASCO is organizing are attended by about 25.000 people and there are always new things. Dr. Gorter can then be very sanguinic at will, and meet several interesting people in an hour.

Dr. Gorter reported back to his colleagues at the Medical Center in Cologne and it was his strong impression that immune restoration is more and more accepted among opinion leaders in the field of Oncology.

No longer is widely discussed whether immune restoration in oncologic patients makes sense and whether it is desirable; current discussions are much more concerned how to conduct proper immune restoration and how to improve efficacy of these therapies.

This trend is reflected in the quickly increasing number of posters on immune restoration and the number of workshops and oral presentations.

Thus, Dr. Gorter and his colleagues, starting in 1998, have become trend setters in the application of autologous, monocyte-derived dendritic cells, activated Natural Killer cells, and autologous stem cells.

In February 2006, Dr. Robert Gorter lectured again at the second school of Scuola di Luca, namely Stella Maris in Bologna, Italy. The main subject was ‘the Human Biography’. In a set of 9 lectures, Robert Gorter gave an overview of the basic principles of human development through one’s biography.

Principles like the septennials; the mirroring of the first part of the biography into the second half, and how the second half of one’s biography can be understood as a metamorphosis of the first half;

the importance of the chances moon nodes offer to man; karma and reincarnation, and how one’s biography has been planned in life before birth; how life after death turns into life before birth (one’s next earth incarnation) again.

Thanks to the work of Rudolf Steiner, PhD. (1861-1925) a lot is known in great detail about life after death, and how the basic principles of karma and reincarnation and the phenomenon of metamorphosis determine one’s biography.

A few times, students could practise on themselves to listen to one other, reporting on one’s biography.

In between, in 6 sessions, Mrs. Carla Borri painted with the students and followed the various themes which were discussed by Robert Gorter before with painting exercises.

The weekend workshop was well attended and all students were present throughout the weekend, and there were moments that students were completely taken by the information they received and the clarity with which Robert Gorter could display a subject that complex. Robert Gorter returned in March of 2006 to lecture on Mankind Development: Karma and Forgiving. In April 2006, he presented the principles of Three-Fold Man and Four-Fold Man.

In addition, in March, one week before returning to Bologna, he lectured in Palermo, Italy, on the Human Biography: basic rhythms in one’s personal development, like the septennials and the moon node rhythms.

From September 8th through September 20th, Robert Gorter, MD, PhD was in San Francisco, California, USA again. During this period of time, he taught his regular class on Anthroposophic Medicine again offered by San Francisco State University (SFSU) (Class HH650). Robert Gorter has been a faculty member at SFSU over the last 18 years.

Faculty member card for Robert Gorter. This card is proof of full faculty membership and gives access to all buildings and library of San Francisco State University, and its facilities off campus.

Class HH650 is a formal 3-units class offered by SFSU twice a year (usually in September and in February of each year). Robert Gorter teaches this class since at least 12 years. Usually, they are very well attended and participants are mostly nurses, pre-med students, health educators, sometimes teachers, etc.
Robert Gorter in front of the main entrance of the campus of San Francisco State University, California, USA

Through the years, under his chairmanship, a small faculty, specifically for teaching on Anthroposophic Medicine has been formed, including, besides Robert Gorter, Heidie Finser-Haffner (Eurythmy), John Bloom (Three-Fold Social Order and money), Jessica Rath (therapeutic painting, drawing and modelling), Erik Peper (Bio-Feed Back and life rhythms), Eira Klich-Heartt, RN, and Iris Parris RN (nursing), Meg Gorman (Waldorf Education), Prof. dr. Maria Linder (Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Fullerton State University), etc.


Eira Klich-Heartt, RN, teaching lemon wraps in a hands-on work shop against fever in children and adults (Eira got her Doctor’s Title in Nursing through her clinical studies and publications with lemon wraps in a regular general community hospital affiliated with the University of California San Francisco as a teaching hospital.


Jessica Rath teaching her class on therapeutic painting, drawing and modelling.
During these 12 days of his stay, at three occasions, Robert Gorter taught in addition as a guest lecturer at classes given by other lecturers and professors at SFSU. This has almost become a tradition. His lectures are always so lively and so appreciated by students and faculty alike, that he has become a wanted speaker on various subjects: child development, health & illness, nutrition and organic & bio-dynamic agriculture, art & architecture, Three-Fold Social Order, and of course, Immunology and Oncology.

One public and extracurricular lecture was included on the “Cologne Model” with an emphasis on the treatment of the oncologic patient (see pictures). About 200 hundred students and faculty members were present. His audience was “hanging at his lips” (as Dutch people say) and you could hear a mouse walk through the auditorium when he spoke (except when he makes jokes: then, at times, his audience seems to break down the building. Robert Gorter can be very, very funny at times).

Robert Gorter at the end of his lecture on Anthroposophic Medicine (the ‘Cologne Model’) on the evening of September 12th, 2005.

Besides lecturing as an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California San Francisco Medical School since 1992 (from 1986 through 1992, he was an Assistant Clinical Professor in Residence for the Department of Medicine and the Department of Family & Community Medicine at the same time), Robert Gorter plans to continue giving his classes on Anthroposophic Health Studies at SFSU till he drops dead.