Ernst Kern (doctor)

Ernst Kern (born January 13, 1923 in Gleisenau , Lower Franconia ; † May 14, 2014 in Zurich ) was a German surgeon and chief physician in southern Baden and Bavaria (until 1991), university professor and organist .

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Ernst Kern was born into a pastor's family in a parsonage and grew up in Augsburg after his family moved in 1925 . His father Heinrich Kern (1886–1967) was pastor and rector of the Evangelical Diakonissenanstalt . His mother Elisabeth b. Schattenmann (1898–1982) was the strictly religious daughter of the Weißenburg dean Franz Schattenmann. Kern had two younger sisters.

From the spring of 1929 Kern attended elementary school in Augsburg. Because of a chronic bronchial disease , he stayed in a children's home in Bayrisch-Gmain for three months in 1931 and 1932 . In 1933 he entered the humanistic high school with St. Anna in Augsburg. From 1934 he was " Pimpf " in the German Young People and became a member of the Hitler Youth at the age of 14 . From 1938 he kept a diary in notebooks.

After graduating from high school in 1941, Kern was drafted into the Wehrmacht and served as a mountain hunter in mountain divisions and others. a. in the Caucasus ( Russia ) and in the Carpathian Mountains on the Eastern Front . During the war he fell ill with hepatitis and paratyphoid fever and spent a long time in hospitals until February 1944 . He had given up his original plan to study music (majoring in organ) or biology in 1943 as a result of the Second World War and in 1944 he trained as a paramedic in the Augsburg home hospital . In 1944, Kern assisted with the treatment of pneumothorax , the surgical treatment of bleeding vessels and the therapy of limb injuries in the medical service grade. In late 1944 suffered core as Obergefreiter severe wounding , the end of the war pulled a hospital stay in Augsburg to itself. In April and May 1945 he assisted in the reserve hospital in Augsburg. From there he began studying medicine in Munich. In June 1945 he spent two weeks in the US prisoner-of-war camp in Neu-Ulm , but was dismissed as “not affected” by the ruling chamber and returned to Augsburg.

Medical education

Kern studied medicine from 1945 to 1949, first at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and from 1946 at the Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen , where he passed the Physikum in 1947 . In 1948 he completed his internship in Neumarkt-Sankt Veit near Göttinger and in 1949 for three months with the orthopedic surgeon Franz Becker , who was one of his most important medical role models. A lifelong friendship developed with him. Core completed his 1949 state exam and was with a thesis on the human sulphate metabolism " magna cum laude " doctorate . In addition, his first publication appeared. He then worked from 1950 as a medical assistant in the psychiatry in Erlangen and from autumn 1950 in the internal department of the Deaconess Hospital in Hamburg-Stellingen , which was set up as an alternative hospital in a villa in Flottbeker Chaussee (today Elbchaussee ) and was also in the Hamburg-Stellingen for six months around 1950 Gynecology active. From 1951 to autumn 1952 he was back in Erlangen and assistant to Otto Friedrich Ranke at the Physiological Institute. This is where Kern's first scientific medical publications were created.

Kern began his surgical career from 1952 to 1954 as assistant mainly responsible for anesthesia at the Surgical University Clinic in Würzburg with Werner Wachsmuth , with whom he later remained on friendly terms until his death. He learned the intubation used for anesthesia from the Würzburg lung surgeon Hans-Joachim Viereck. When a newborn with esophageal atresia was successfully operated on for the first time in Würzburg in 1953 , Kern was responsible for anesthesia and post-ventilation.

He undertook training trips, for example to Cologne and in 1953 to Ernst Derra in Düsseldorf, where cardiac surgery was practiced under artificial hypothermia (according to Henri Laborit and P. Huguenard ), and in 1954 to the anesthetist Kurt Wiemers in Freiburg. In 1953, Kern met the professor there, Walter Dick , in Cologne , who left a formative impression.

In the spring of 1954, Kern quit his job in Würzburg and traveled with his wife to southern Italy and Sweden , where he completed a six-month study visit in 1954 and with the surgeon and art collector Philip Sandblom (1903-2001) in Lund and with Helge B. Wulff in Malmö observed. He was the only foreigner to witness the first successful operation with a heart-lung machine at the Crafoord Clinic ( Sabbatsberg-Sjukhuset) in Stockholm , which was carried out by senior physicians Åke Senning and Crafoord.

Freiburg (1954 to 1966)

On September 1, 1954, Kern moved to the Freiburg University Medical Center to work with Hermann Krauss , who became his most important surgical teacher. Here he was initially an assistant, ward doctor and, in the summer semester of 1959, a specialist doctor. With him he completed his habilitation with a surgical work mainly treating the pancreatic cysts and in the same year became senior physician at the University Clinic Freiburg. His inaugural lecture was about surgery and the psyche . In Freiburg he mainly dealt with organ surgery, in particular with the surgery of the bile and biliary tract , also published on general topics (such as fully automatic ventilation in intensive care patients ) and was an adjunct professor of surgery from 1964 to 1966.

In 1956, together with the anesthetist Wiemers, Kern published a monograph on postoperative early complications, their treatment and prevention , the first German book on intensive therapy . Together with Wiemers, further, mainly physiological publications were created.

Like Fritz Kümmerle , the first senior physician at the Freiburg Clinic, who was appointed full professor in Mainz in 1962, Kern also successfully performed a pancreatectomy (removal of the pancreas). As a result, he was increasingly invited to congress lectures. In early 1962 he received a travel grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG). In 1965 he gave the main lecture on biliary surgery for the German Society for Surgery in Munich and on surgery and the psyche in Switzerland at the invitation of the Swiss Psychotherapeutic Society . Funded by the DFG and the Goethe Institute , he toured the USA and Mexico from autumn 1966 . He interned for several months at various clinics in the USA , for example with the pancreatic specialist William P. Longmire (1913–2003) in Los Angeles . Further stations in the USA were Ohio (with Robert M. Zollinger, the namesake of Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome ), the Mayo Clinic , Boston (with Richard B. Cattell and Kenneth W. Warren ) and New York . In Mexico City he attended the Congress of the International College of Surgeons and in San Francisco the Congress of the American College of Surgeons . Further stops on his journey, which were connected with lectures, were Japan , Thailand , India and Iran .

Lörrach (1966 to 1969)

In 1966, Kern was appointed as an independent expert on the hospital situation at the newly built Lörrach Municipal Hospital and was chief physician in the 150-bed surgical department from 1967 to 1969. Resident physician positions, senior physician positions and the position of chief anesthetist were filled with doctors from Freiburg. In Lörrach, Kern got to know Rudolf Nissen , whom he venerated as a surgeon and who has been working in Basel since 1952, as a neighbor. Since his time in Lörrach, Kern's main focus has been on general surgical diseases of the abdominal area (such as abdominal injuries, acute abdomen , peritoneal adhesions , peritonitis and intestinal obstruction ). In the summer of 1968 he gave trial lectures at the University of Göttingen (where Werner Creutzfeldt would have liked to see him as a surgeon), the University of Marburg and the University of Würzburg (in the main college of Wachsmuth). Thyroid surgery also became a focus of his surgical activity, especially since he operated in goiter areas endemic due to iodine deficiency in southern Baden and Bavaria .

Würzburg (from 1969)

On September 1, 1969, he followed the call of the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg as the successor of Wachsmuth to the chair of surgery and took over the management of the surgical university clinic. His senior physician, the private lecturer Ruprecht Zwirner, followed him to Würzburg. In October 1969, Kern held the “ ladies 'speech ” as the youngest professor at the Central Rhine Surgeons' Congress in Mainz, as was tradition , and also in 1979 as next year's chairman in Würzburg. His inaugural lecture in February 1970 in Würzburg was entitled Application and Non-Application of Modern Technology in Surgery .

Kern established special departments in Würzburg for hand surgery (staffed by Ulrich Lanz), plastic surgery (Peter Eckert), vascular surgery (Martin Sperling), pediatric surgery (Burkhardt Höcht) and trauma surgery . He himself mainly focused on visceral surgery . At the Würzburg Surgical University Clinic, when Kern took office, white surgical clothing was replaced by colored surgical clothing and the AO instruments of the working group for osteosynthesis issues for new accident surgical surgical methods were introduced. With his team, Kern developed, among other things, the abdominal lavage , which enabled faster and improved diagnosis of abdominal injuries, as well as the "open" treatment for severe peritonitis ( peritonitis therapy ).

At the International Congress of Surgeons in Kyoto ( Japan ) in September 1977, Kern gave the first main lecture (on peritonitis).

Kern retired on March 31, 1991 . His farewell lecture held on February 15, 1991 and in Veitshöchheim dealt with the topic of real and supposed progress in surgery.

Other activities and memberships

Kern was President of the Bavarian Surgeons Association (1972 and 1990) and the Association of Middle Rhine Surgeons (1980). In 1972 and 1990 he chaired the Bavarian Surgeons' Congress in Würzburg. In 1977 he became a member of the Academia Leopoldina in Halle (in 1989 he became chairman of the surgery section and thus a member of the Senate).

As co-editor of the journal Der Chirurg published by Springer-Verlag , he worked for over 20 years from 1967. He traveled to Bhutan in 1998 with Georg Heberer , who also worked there as editor . He often met with the chief editor Theodor-Otto Lindenschmidt in Hamburg . He was also co-editor of " Breitner's Operations Theory" for 25 years .

Kern wrote a biography of the surgeon Theodor Billroth , worked on further biographical publications on Billroth with Karel Bedřich Absolon (1926–2009) and was involved in the installation and unveiling of the Billroth memorial plaque in Staffelde near Berlin in 1999 .

Artistic activity

Kern received piano and organ lessons in childhood and youth . During his time in the Hitler Youth he worked there as a pianist in the "Bannorchester der HJ". From the age of 14 to 18, he studied the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach with his organ teacher Karl Hubel . He gave his first public organ concert at the age of 17 at the Reformation Festival in St. Anna's Church in Augsburg , where he was also confirmed . His organ teacher at the time of his medical studies was Günther Lamprecht.

With regard to his first publication on organ building in 1949, which was also noted by Albert Schweitzer , he was in professional contact with Gustav Fock . Other organological publications included the study on the physiology and psychology of organ playing , written in 1960 with the organ builder Glatter-Götz .

During the time with Wachsmuth in Würzburg he continued to cultivate music (for example chamber music ) with the ophthalmologist Walther Reichling (1894–1972) and senior physician Ewald Weisschedel (later chief physician in Konstanz, † 1976). In Freiburg, too, he devoted himself to playing the organ, received lessons from the organist of the Martin Luther Church , Ernst Martin Millies, and worked in private circles on chamber music evenings and also as a soloist. From 1968 he played on an originally for the twin sister of the Shah of Iran -made Steinway grands. In Würzburg, too, Kern dealt with the organ as a journalist and received lessons from the organists Günter Jena ( Johanniskirche ) and Klaus Linsenmeyer ( Haug Abbey ).

In 1986 he gave a concert on the newly built four-manual organ in the Würzburg Neubaukirche in front of over 1000 listeners. After his retirement, Kern, who had suffered from hearing disorders since his youth, devoted himself to music, especially as an organist and pianist, as well as oil painting , art history and orchid photography , which he has been practicing since 1975 . From 1951 he also wrote botanical works, in particular on wild orchids in Europe.

Family and personal

Kern was married in his first marriage from 1952 to 1971, the marriage resulted in a daughter. After the divorce, Kern married the Swiss cellist and professor for cello Esther Nyffenegger in 1972 . Kern's only child, the sinologist and art historian Irene Stoll-Kern, who was born in his first marriage in 1955 . a. Director of the Sotheby’s auction house in Zurich

The mountain tours of the Kern, which has been linked to the mountains since childhood, were undertaken at home and abroad, including the ascent of the Grossglockner (1956), the Aetna (1961), the Olymp (1961), the Mount Kenya and 1989 the Kilimanjaro (up to about 5000 meters altitude ).

Honors

• Medal Winter Battle in the East 1941/42
• Iron cross for the recovery of the wounded, 1944/1945
• Honorary member of the Association of Middle Rhine Surgeons
• Fellow of the American College of Surgeons
• Member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , 1977
• Merit Medal of the Leopoldina , 2003

Publications (selection)

Department of Medicine

• The range of the difference sensitivity of the eye with a fixed state of adaptation. In: Journal of Biology. Volume 105, 1952, p. 237 ff.
• with Kurt Wiemers with the participation of Hermann Krauss : The postoperative early complications. Your treatment and prevention. Georg Thieme, Stuttgart 1957.
• General surgery. Springer, Berlin 1967; Reprint ibid 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-49093-4 .
• with Kurt Wiemers , Hermann Krauss and Maria Günther: Postoperative early complications. Basics of patient treatment on the guard ward. Thieme, Stuttgart 1969.
• with Hans G. Beger: Acutes Abdomen. Thieme, Stuttgart 1987.
• Karel Bedrich Absolon: The Grand Master of Surgery Theodor Billroth (1829-1894). German transl. U. Edited by Ernst Kern. Kabel-Verlag, Rockville, Maryland 1989, ISBN 0-930329-29-5 (Original title: Thesurgeon's surgeon (Theodor Billroth, 1829-1894) ).
• with Karel B. Absolon: Theodor Billroth private. The Billroth-Seegen letters. Kabel-Verlag, Hamburg 1989.
• Real and supposed progress in surgery. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 9, 1991, ISSN  0177-5227 , pp. 417-429.
• The second turn of surgery. (Lecture on the occasion of Günther Hierholzer's 60th birthday in Duisburg on June 6, 1993) In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 12, 1994, pp. 363-373.
• Theodor Billroth 1829–1894, biography based on personal reports. Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1994.
• The doctor, especially the surgeon, at the beginning of the 21st century. Private print 2008.
• as editor (from 1968) with Burghard Breitner as well as Herbert Kraus, Ludwig Zukschwerdt , Franz Gschnitzer , Urs Brunner, J. Allenberg , Hans Martin Becker, HJ Böhmig and J. Dimes: Surgical operation theory. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Munich / Vienna / Baltimore.

Department of Music

• Instrument or signal box? Thoughts on modernizing the organ. In: Musica . Issue 12, 1949.
• Small organ tour between Weser and Elbe. In: Musica. 1951.
• The organ. In: Therapy of the Month. 1962.
• The organ as an instrument in a technological world. In: Ars Organi. 1970.
• Question of the tempo when playing Bach's organ works. In: Ars Organi. 1999.

Autobiographical works

• Soldier on the Eastern Front 1941–1945. Kranich-Verlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-906640-93-0 (war diary, written in 1945, distributed as a photocopy to close friends in 1991, published in English in New York in 1994).
• Seeing - thinking - acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 (autobiography and history of surgery in the form of a "diary 1999").
• Thirteen lives in parallel - attempt at an autobiography. Self-published in 2012. An ongoing autobiography written since 1979.

literature

• Rainer Arbogast : In memoriam Prof. em. Dr. med. Ernst Kern . In: The surgeon . tape 85 , no. 8 , 2014, p. 696-696 , doi : 10.1007 / s00104-014-2826-7 .

Individual evidence

^{CV =} Ernst Kern: seeing - thinking - acting of a surgeon in the 20th century. ecomed, Landsberg am Lech 2000, ISBN 3-609-20149-5 (autobiography and history of surgery in the form of a "diary 1999").

1. ↑ pp. 10, 26 f., 29, 31, 41, 47 f., 51 f., 58, 66 f., 71 f., 90, 100, 114, 171, 202, 226 f., 232 f. , 261, 263, 267, 269 f., 272, 274, 276, 278-280, 284 f., 287, 289-302, 311, 313, 319 and 331.
2. ↑ pp. 30, 59, 68 and 301-304.
3. ↑ p. 305.
4. ↑ pp. 29 f., 33, 42 f., 45, 62 f., 68 f., 101-103, 106, 108 f., 111, 122 f., 164 f., 168, 265, 305-309 and 326.
5. ↑ pp. 17 f., 24, 26 f., 30, 64, 69, 77 f., 103, 109, 144, 207 f., 294, 308-310, 312 f. and 315.
6. ↑ P. 143 and 310.
7. ↑ pp. 76, 314 and 316-318.
8. ↑ pp. 24, 29, 33, 81 f., 95, 312 f. and 317-319.
9. ↑ pp. 24, 28, 33 f., 243, 247, 319–321, 324, 329 and 340.
10. ↑ p. 326.
11. ↑ p. 43, 176 f. (Fig. 6) and 338.
12. ↑ pp. 84 f., 322 and 336 f.
13. ↑ p. 24 f., 83, 237, 318, 320 and 332.
14. ↑ pp. 125, 325 and 331.
15. ↑ pp. 49, 171, 210, 293-295, 305 f. and 312.
16. ↑ p. 26, 307 f. and 333.
17. ↑ pp. 26 and 334.
18. ↑ P. 143, 192 f., 210, 312, 330, 338, 340, 342 and 344.
19. ↑ pp. 73, 105, 322 f. and 332
20. ↑ pp. 100, 143 and 322.
21. ^ Pp. 143, 158, 282 f. and 332.
22. ↑ pp. 31, 45, 251, 310, 313 and 336.
23. ↑ p. 52.
24. ↑ p. 67.
25. ↑ pp. 76 and 317.
26. ↑ p. 297 f.

1. ↑ See also Heinrich Kern: Die Evangelische Diakonissenanstalt Augsburg 1855–1955. Sheets of memory from the 100-year history of the deaconess institution. Augsburg 1955.
2. ↑ Ingemar Ihse: Philip Sandblom; surgeon, scientist, humanist and citizen of the world (1903-2001). In: HPB . Volume 3, No. 3, 2001, pp. 219-220, doi : 10.1080 / 136518201753242244 , PMID 18333018 , PMC 2020626 (free full text).
3. ↑ The acute diseases of the pancreas with special consideration of the lighter forms and their importance for surgery. Habilitation thesis.
4. ↑ Andreas Mettenleiter : With ophthalmoscope and baton. In: Main-Post . April 20, 2008.
5. ^ Radio Swiss: Music database. Musician: Esther Nyffenegger .
6. ↑ Hans-Peter Bruch, R. Broll: Laudation on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Prof. Dr. med. Ernst Kern. In: Surgical gastroenterology. 10, 1954, p. 5 f.
7. ↑ Member entry by Ernst Kern at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on December 13, 2017.
8. ↑ Leopoldina Medal of Merit, leopoldina.org.