Volkmar Falk

Volkmar Falk (born January 17, 1965 ) is a German heart surgeon and university professor . Since October 2014, he has been Medical Director and Director of the Clinic for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery of the German Heart Center Berlin (DHZB) and at the same time Charité Full Professor of the Clinic for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery at the Charité .

Professional background

Falk studied human medicine at the University of Bonn from 1986 to 1992 and received his doctorate there in 1993. His surgical training began at the University of Göttingen , and he completed his specialist training at the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery at the Leipzig Heart Center . In 1998, Falk became a specialist in cardiac surgery . From 1998 he was a senior physician at the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery at the Heart Center of the University of Leipzig, in the meantime he worked for a year (1999–2000) as a research assistant at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

In 2001 Falk completed his habilitation at the Medical Faculty of the University of Leipzig. In 2002 he completed further training in special cardiac intensive care medicine. In 2003 he became senior physician at the Clinic for Cardiac Surgery at the Heart Center of the University of Leipzig. In 2007, Falk was appointed W2 professor for cardiac surgery at the University of Leipzig.

On January 1, 2009, Volkmar Falk became Director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery at the University Hospital Zurich and Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Zurich .

Since October 2014 he has been full professor of the Clinic for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery of the Charité and Medical Director and Director of the Clinic for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery of the German Heart Center Berlin (DHZB) . In this function he is the successor to Roland Hetzer . Since October 2015, Falk has also been director of the Clinic for Cardiovascular Surgery at the Charité (Campus Mitte).

Falk specializes in minimally invasive and catheter-based heart valve surgery.

In December 2018, Falk was appointed full professor for translational cardiovascular technologies at ETH Zurich.

In 2020 he operated on Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin .

Research and Teaching

Falk is the author or co-author of over 500 scientific publications. He was a co-founder of the Innovation Center for Computer-Assisted Surgery (ICCAS) at the University of Leipzig, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). During his work in Zurich he established numerous collaborations with the ETH Zurich and initiated the "Zurich Heart" project, an interdisciplinary research project aimed at improving existing and researching completely new concepts for circulatory support systems. Falk continues to lead the project, which now comprises around 20 research groups, after moving to Berlin.

Memberships

Falk is a member of both the German and the European Society for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery (DGTHG / EACTS) and the European Society for Cardiology (ESC). In all of these associations, he is a member of the committees or teams of authors for the creation of new guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Most recently, he worked as a co-author on the new European guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic and acute heart failure published in June 2016.

Falk also belongs to the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (ISMICS), the German Society for Cardiology - Heart and Circulatory Research e. V. (DGK), the American Association of Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and numerous other associations and societies.

Falk is co-editor of the European Heart Journal, the most important European specialist journal for cardiovascular diseases. In total, Falk works as a co-editor, reviewer or scientific advisor for 19 specialist journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine .

Awards

In 2000, Falk was awarded the Ulrich Karsten Prize of the German Society for Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery for his habilitation thesis.

Private

Falk is married and has one daughter.

Fonts

• Intraoperative control of coronary artery bypasses using thermal coronary angiography; with special consideration of the internal mammary artery bypasses . Dissertation at the University of Bonn, 1993
• Experimental development and clinical implementation of a method for endoscopic myocardial revascularization using a computer-aided telemanipulator . Habilitation thesis at the University of Leipzig 2001
• more publishments

Individual evidence

1. ^ PT: Newly appointed: V. Falk. In: University of Leipzig: Journal. 2007, no. 6 (December 2007), p. 47.
2. ↑ https://www.ethz.ch/de/news-und-veranstaltungen/eth-news/news/2018/12/neue-professuren.html
3. ↑ https://www.katholisch.de/artikel/26451-erzbischof-koch-nach-herz-not-op-gott-hat-mich-beschuetzt
4. ↑ List of publications. In: US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. Retrieved January 16, 2018 . 
5. ↑ UZH University Medicine Zurich. In: hochschulmedizin.uzh.ch. January 9, 2018, accessed January 16, 2018 . 
6. ^ German Society for Thoracic, Cardiac and Vascular Surgery. In: dgthg.de. Retrieved January 16, 2018 . 
7. ^ EACTS Association. In: eacts.org. December 18, 2017, accessed January 16, 2018 . 
8. ↑ German Heart Institute Berlin (ie for example): DHZB: published new guidelines on the treatment of heart failure. (No longer available online.) In: dhzb.de. May 24, 2016, formerly in the original ; accessed on January 16, 2018 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
9. ↑ Prize winners ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website of the German Society for Thoracic, Cardiac and Vascular Surgery , accessed on June 7, 2014. 
10. ↑ Ulrike von Leszczynski, dpa: Volkmar Falk is the new boss  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , biermann-medizin.de, October 2, 2014