My extensive surgical accomplishments, especially in patients with malignant diseases, scientific activities in organizational terms, and comprehensive publications finally resulted in my becoming Full Professor of General Surgery at the University Clinic, Vienna General Hospital, as successor to Prof. Arnulf Fritsch, in 1996. Since then, I have particularly enjoyed this challenging function as it gives me the opportunity
  • to intensively cooperate with an excellent team of colleagues at my Division,
  • to nourish the principle of interdisciplinarity in a superb patient-centered and scientific context,
  • to implement processes of specialization according to individual dispositions and capabilities and to the extent required today, and
  • to develop or significantly support novel strategies in many respects.
Most of my collaborators have been appointed to responsible leading positions throughout the country and in general cherish close relationships with their original clinic.

The guidelines governing my position at the Division of General Surgery and at the Breast Service include the following
  • highest-quality treatment emanating from an overall interdisciplinary perspective of treatment decisions and in terms of surgical specialization in an effort to enrich personal experiences,
  • international representation and contacts serving the exchange of ideas and advanced training,
  • one-year stays abroad at renowned international institutions facilitated for collaborators,
  • maintenance of the principle of collegiality, individual career management, promotion regardless of gender, and integration into research activities at an early stage,
  • support for clinic-related basic research,
  • surgical amplitude sustained while combined with devotion to one‘s selected specialty, attention, awareness and consideration established in terms of patients‘ mental and emotional burdens that are related and due to their disease, and finally
  • holistic therapeutical concepts.
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Students‘ training is one of my particular concerns within the scope of my activities at the Clinic of Surgery. While knowledge transfer is much easier today in an age of virtually unlimited access via the Internet, truly learning to gain access to patients – clinical examinations, assessments of clinical pictures – remains very important in the training process. As compared to previous times, it has become clearly more important to adequately inform and personally deal with patients: the demands on our young colleagues in terms of clarification and information – not only as regards surgery itself, but also concomitant conservative procedures and explaining possible complications – take up a far broader time horizon than ever before. Thus, students‘ training has been forced to adapt to these external conditions, in turn requiring substantial interaction with one‘s instructors.
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Following many years of dealing with an abundance of diseases, my surgical interventions today are chiefly restricted to patients with cancer, particularly breast and colorectal diseases. Over the past years, I have operated several thousands of breast cancer patients, whereas breast-conserving surgical treatment has been especially close to my heart (cf. also ABCSG). Close interaction with our partners in pathology is an imperative prerequisite for determining free resection margins in surgery. Over the past 13 years, I have also focused on the concept of sentinel lymph node dissection in an attempt to limit complete axillary lymph node dissection.

Surgery is done according to patients‘ preferences at Vienna General Hospital, the Golden Cross Hospital in Vienna, or the ‘Wiener Privatklinik‘. Postoperative treatment in terms of endocrine therapy is performed at my own institutions, and I closely collaborate with Prof. Christoph Zielinski and Prof. Guenther Steger at the Department of Internal Medicine with regard to implementing pre- and postoperative chemotherapy .

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