Editorial Comment: Symposium: Tscherne Festschrift: Editorial Comment

Excerpt

Unlike the typical collection of papers generally arranged around a topic, this symposium is arranged around a man. In 1970, Professor Harald Tscherne became the director of the newly created trauma department at the Hannover Medical School [1]. At that time, few considered trauma a specialty, and the management of injured patients was often relegated to junior staff at inconvenient hours. Prehospital care systems were rudimentary at best, and few in medicine were thinking about injury prevention. Prof. Tscherne was quickly recognized as a leading thinker in the young and developing field. The Classic article for this issue [2], first published in 1971, presents concepts so familiar to us now as to seem like medical school text. Yet, they were unique at the time, and brought together basic science and clinical experience to establish the principles of modern trauma care. Through the course of his career, Prof. Tscherne made scholarly contributions across the spectrum of trauma from prevention to rehabilitation. Without question, his most important and lasting contributions have been as a leader and an educator. As such, every article in this collection is authored by a surgeon who spent some period of his or her training in Hannover during the Tscherne years. …