Switzerland

He graduated at the University of Berne, Switzerland, in 1966. His surgical education was mainly at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Zurich and at the Institute for Plastic and Reconstructiv Surgery, New York University, Medical Center, New York.

He has Board Qualifications in General Surgery, Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery and Handsurgery as well. In June 1974 successfully re-attached a hand amputated through the metacarpus, which was one of the first such replantations in Europe.

In 1975 he established the first Replantation Center in Switzerland which at the time was one of the first replantation- centers in Europe.

From 1987 – 2005 he was full Professor of Surgery and Head of the Departement for Hand- Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. From 1990-1992 he was Medical Director of the Medical Center of the University of Zurich.

He received many awards and honours as e.g. the Georg Friedrich Goetz- Award of the University of Zurich for his significant work in Microsurgery, the Honorary Membership of the Swiss Society for Surgery, the Honorary Membership of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand, Member of Honor of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Romanian Society for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Honorary Member of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, and in 2011 he was elected as ”IFSSH Pioneer of Handsurgery”,

He was frequntly invited as lecturer in various countries outside Europe and wrote numerous articles and book chapters and is editorial board member of severeal journals.

He is founding member, past-president and Honorary Member of the German Speaking Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, past-president and Honorary Member of the Swiss Society for Plastic- Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery, member of the Executive Council of the IPRAS for one period of office and, after having served the International Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery as secretary, he became president-elect of this society in 1996.

He was an active member of the group that initiated the merger of the International Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery and the International Microsurgical Society to one new society, namely the “World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery” In 1999 he was elected in Los Angeles as first president of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery.Together with Fu Chan Wei he organized in 2001 the first congress of this new society in Taipe with more than 650 paticipants.
In February 2005 he retired from his academic position as Professor of Surgery.
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In January 2007 he has been elected as the first Dean of the newly founded Swiss Academy of Veterinary Medicine.