Norbert Gschwend

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Norbert Gschwend-Keller (born August 29, 1925 in Rapperswil ; † March 22, 2020 ) was a Swiss orthopedist and university professor . He is considered to be the "pioneer of modern orthopedics".

Life

Norbert Gschwend's father was a Swiss doctor, his mother came from Italy. In addition to Swiss German and German, he spoke fluent French and Italian. He spent his school days at the Einsiedeln monastery school, among other places .

He completed his medical studies at the University of Zurich in 1950, and four years later he did his doctorate on the pupillary reaction during childbirth . From 1956 to 1961 he completed his orthopedic specialist training at the Balgrist Orthopedic University Clinic in Zurich. This was followed by stays in London, Scandinavia and the USA. on. There he worked as a fellow at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota , in New York and in Iowa City. He completed his habilitation in 1958 on the surgical treatment of progressive chronic polyarthritis and received his venia legendi for the summer semester of 1959. The University of Zurich appointed him adjunct professor in 1975, and in 2000 he retired.

Gschwend was married and had six children.

Schulthess Clinic

In 1962, at the age of 37, he was appointed chief physician at the Schulthess Clinic in Zurich, a small private clinic, but insisted that Heiner Scheier be appointed as a second chief physician for spinal surgery. Soon a senior rheumatologist was added with Hubert Baumgartner . Since his stay in the USA, he has strived for a collegiality principle in the clinic management with senior physicians of the same rank in the specializations, which he implemented and developed at the Schulthess Clinic.

New construction of the Schulthess Clinic in the Weinegg district in Zurich

The initially conservative orientation of the clinic with the treatment of physical disabilities, especially in children, especially scoliosis therapy , was increasingly replaced by an operative orientation under Gschwend. He was a pioneer in orthopedic surgery in many ways, including the treatment of scoliosis. Due to the increasing national awareness, the Schulthess Clinic grew steadily, so that in 1995 it had to move from the center to a new building on the city limits of Zurich in the Weinegg district , in the immediate vicinity of the Balgrist University Orthopedic Clinic (and the Burghölzli Psychiatric University Clinic ). There, when the new clinic opened on May 29, 1995, he carried out the first surgical procedure, which was also his last operation before his retirement, although this was followed by years of consulting hours and lectures.

Research and Development

Gschwend scientifically interested mainly for the surgical treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and rheumatism surgery in general. In addition, he was interested in endoprosthetics and made numerous suggestions for the further development of total knee replacement, especially for rheumatism patients.

In 1969 he was also the first to implant a mobile total endoprosthesis consisting of two components in a wrist that had been destroyed by rheumatoid arthritis. Together with Heiner Scheier and André Bähler (engineer), he developed numerous endoprostheses that were marketed under the name “GBS”. The best known was the elbow endoprosthesis "GBS", one of the first and still widely used endoprosthesis of the elbow, which was specially designed and developed for the needs of rheumatism patients. In the meantime, a knee prosthesis also bore the name, but is no longer used today.

In addition to the scientific publication of some developments, he followed up his patients and published medium and long-term results, on the basis of which he decisively further developed endoprosthetics on the knee and elbow. At the Schultheis Clinic, he was one of the first to establish an endoprosthesis register for systematic and long-term tracking of the implants installed.

Gschwend was a co-founder of the European umbrella company ERASS for rheumatism surgery and numerous Swiss specialist societies. From 1974 to 1977 he was President of the Swiss Orthopedic Society.

Publications (selection)

  • Norbert Gschwend: The operative treatment of progressive chronic polyarthritis. Georg-Thieme-Verlag, Stuttgart 1968
  • N. Gschwend: With hand and heart. Four decades as an orthopedist at the Wilhelm Schulthess Clinic , Orell-Füssli Zurich 2005, ISBN 978-3-280-06060-5
  • Norbert Gschwend, Piet M. Rozing (eds.): Arm, forearm and elbow (Volume 4) in the series Surgical techniques in orthopedics and traumatology , edited by J. Duparc for the Fédération européenne des sociétés nationales d'orthopédie et de traumatologie. Elsevier-Verlag 2002, ISBN 2-84299-417-5
  • Norbert Gschwend, Rainer-Peter Meyer: Long-term results looking back on over 50 years of orthopedic surgery , Chapter 11, pp. 93-102. In: Rainer-Peter Meyer, Hans-Kaspar Schwyzer, Beat René Simmen (Eds.): Long-term results in extremity and spine surgery - follow-up of 20 years and more. Springer-Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-49089-1 , DOI: 10.1007 / 978-3-662-49090-7 11

Awards

  • Honorary member of the German Society for Orthopedics and Orthopedic Surgery (DGOOC), also lexer award winner of the DGOOC
  • Honorary member of the American Rheumatism Association
  • Honorary member of the Swiss Society for Rheumatology
  • Honorary member of the German Society for Orthopedic Rheumatology
  • Founding member, temporarily president, and honorary member of the German Society for Rheumatology
  • Honorary member of the Swiss Society for Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Norbert Gschwend-Keller. In: Norbert Gschwend: With hand and heart: four decades as an orthopedist at the Wilhelm Schulthess Clinic. , Orell Füssli, 2005, p. 247
  2. ↑ Obituary notice In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from March 26, 2020 (accessed June 26, 2020)
  3. ↑ Dieter Grob, Tomas Drobny, Jiri Dvorak: A pioneer of modern orthopedics . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung 2015, online August 29, 2015 (accessed June 24, 2020).
  4. ^ Daniel Herren: Obituary for Prof. Dr. med. Norbert Gschwend, August 29, 1925 to March 22, 2020 . Schulthess Clinic (accessed on June 26, 2020).
personal data
SURNAME Gschwend, Norbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gschwend-Keller, Norbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss medic
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Rapperswil
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 2020