High-ranking appointment in pediatric cardiac surgery

Campus news

5/2/2019
Reading time 4 min.

At the beginning of May, a pediatric cardiac surgery team from Munich set off for Cairo to assist the experts there. The leader of the team is Professor Jürgen Hörer, who recently assumed a unique position in Munich: he is professor of surgery for congenital cardiac defects and pediatric cardiac surgery at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), clinical director of the German Heart Center Munich (DHM) as well as head of the Surgery for Congenital Heart Defects and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Ludwig Maximilians University Hospital in Munich.

One baby per hundred is born with a cardiac defect. Even as infants, the tiny patients require complex operations or even heart transplants. With around 700 interventions per year, including more than 500 at the DHM of the TUM, Munich is one of the top pediatric cardiac surgery centers in Europe. Until now, the DHM and LMU-Hospital in Grosshadern have operated separately. With Professor Jürgen Hörer now at the helm, all pediatric cardiac surgery institutions in Munich are working together for the first time.

Prof. Jürgen Hörer at the operating room.

Concentration of existing expertise

Pediatric cardiac surgery has gained importance in recent years thanks to improvements in surgical and diagnostic techniques that have made it possible to treat many congenital heart defects at an early stage. Consequently, many patients with congenital heart defects now reach adulthood as a result of better care, while their medical history means that they must continue to be monitored and, if necessary, undergo surgery. They too are among the patients of pediatric cardiac surgery hospitals. With the appointment of Jürgen Hörer to the TUM, the alliance partners are broadening their expertise and assuming a leading position in the growing field of cardiac surgery care for children.

Jürgen Hörer will work at all three institutions: He is professor of surgery for congenital heart defects and pediatric cardiac surgery at the TUM and director of the newly established Department of Surgery for Congenital Heart Defects and Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at the DHM. At the same time, he is responsible for pediatric cardiac surgery and for training pediatric surgeons at Grosshadern University Hospital in Munich, where he also heads the Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Department. In the future, the partners will offer the full range of pediatric cardiac surgery services at both sites, with the TUM and DHM specializing in complex neonatal surgery. In addition to the family-oriented care of newborns and their mothers, Grosshadern Hospital is also responsible for artificial hearts, transplants and minimally invasive surgery (interventional pediatric cardiology).

„Since becoming affiliated with the German Heart Center, the TUM has decisively shaped pediatric cardiac surgery in Munich for over two decades.”— Prof. Wolfgang A. Herrmann, President of TUM

“Since becoming affiliated with the German Heart Center, the TUM has decisively shaped pediatric cardiac surgery in Munich for over two decades. With the appointment of Professor Hörer, we are strengthening this important discipline not only in Munich but across Germany. We are delighted that we have been able to recruit a highly experienced surgeon and preeminent scientist, who now complements the broad range of experts we have in congenital heart disease,” as Professor Wolfgang A. Herrmann, President of the TUM, stated.

“Professor Hörer is returning to the German Heart Center in Munich as a leading surgeon for congenital heart disease. The new Pediatric Cardiac Surgery Department does justice to the special significance of this demanding discipline. The new cross-site approach is important for Munich in that it combines all expertise in a single chair for the benefit of children with heart disease”, comments Professor Peter Ewert, MD, medical director of the DHM.

Professor Karl-Walter Jauch, medical director and chairman of the Executive Board of the Munich University Hospital comments: “The unique cooperation between the two Munich universities has taken the care of children with heart disease to a new level. Munich University Hospital is well positioned in pediatric cardiology as well as cardiac surgery. With Professor Hörer, this expertise is now ideally rounded off to include pediatric cardiac surgery. Newborns with heart defects, as well as their mothers, can now be treated in a family-friendly setting in Grosshadern.”

Résumé of Professor Jürgen Hörer

Professor Jürgen Hörer studied medicine at the University of Saarland, Université de Paris VI and Inselspital Bern. He then worked as a medical assistant from 2001 to 2008 in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the DHM. Since 2008, he has been active as a senior physician. Three years later he was appointed deputy head of the Department of Surgery for Congenital Heart Defects at the DHM. Hörer completed his clinical career with his habilitation (teaching qualification) at the TUM (2008) and appointment as professor extraordinarius (2015). Since 2015, he has been a professor at Université Paris XI, as well as Director of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Marie Lannelongue Hospital.

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