Lemij went to various primary schools in several countries, since his parents worked with an international oil company. His secondary school was the Rijnlands Lyceum in Wassenaar, The Netherlands.
Academic and medical training:
1978 – 1985 Medical school at the State University of Leiden, The Netherlands. Lemij graduated cum laude.
1985 – 1987 Military service in the Royal Dutch Navy, largely as a resident in Psychiatry at the Marine Hospitaal (Navy Hospital), Overveen, The Netherlands.
1987 – 1989 PhD-student at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He worked at the Department of Physiology I, supervised by Prof. H. Collewijn. Lemij’s research was into the conjugacy of saccadic eye movements. More specifically, Lemij examined adaptation of the human saccadic oculomotor system to anisometropic spectacles requiring nonconjugate saccades. Lemij graduated cum laude. His thesis was awarded with the Hamburger prize, as well as the Binkhorst prize.
1989 – 1993 Residency in ophthalmology at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The head of the residency programme was G.S. Baarsma, MD. During the residency, Lemij became increasingly interested in glaucoma.
1993 Lemij spent 3 months visiting various glaucoma specialists in the United Kingdom, the United States of America and The Netherlands.
1993 – date Lemij joined the faculty of The Rotterdam Eye Hospital as a glaucoma specialist and as an anterior segment surgeon. He is also the Scientific Director of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital. He has served on the Rotterdam Eye Hospital’s Science Committee. This committee was renamed into the Institutional Review Board after a merger with the hospital’s Medical Ethics Committee in January 2004. Lemij’s own research activities initially focussed on the oculomotor system, but more recently on glaucoma. In glaucoma, most research has been into scanning laser polarimetry, a technique that determines in vivo the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer, a thin tissue that is affected in glaucoma. Lately, several other imaging technologies used in glaucoma have been added to his research activities. He has also developed an interest in shared glaucoma care, i.e., delegating clinical tasks to other eye care professionals, optometrists and technicians, both within and outside the hospital setting. In 2004, he extended his research activities to genetic epidemiology of glaucoma. In addition, Lemij regularly gives courses in glaucoma and perimetry to ophthalmologists, residents and ophthalmic technicians throughout The Netherlands and abroad. He is the president of the Dutch Humphrey Perimeter Users Society as well as of the Dutch Glaucoma Group. He established the Imaging Morphometry Association for Glaucoma in Europe (IMAGE) in 2002. He helped establish the Glaucoma Genetic Epidemiology Network in Europe (GlaucoGENE) in 2004. Since 2006, he is a visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2009, he has become the vice-president and secretary of the medical faculty of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital.
1998 – 2004 Lemij chaired the Medical Ethics Committee of The Rotterdam Eye Hospital. As mentioned earlier, this committee changed into the Institutional Review Board in January 2004.
2009 Lemij became vice-chair and secretary of the medical faculty of the Rotterdam Eye Hospital.
Additional training/courses
1988 Cambridge Proficiency Certificate in English (level C2 of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
1998 – 1999 Curriculum for Living (Landmark Education)
1999 Communication courses CAP/CPP (Landmark Education)
2000 Effective Negotiating (Karrass Europe Limited)
2005-2007 French conversation lessons (Alliance Française)
2007- date Italian
2010 French conversation lessons (Myngle.com)