Heart Transplantation: Past, Present and Future

Hermann Reichenspurner went to a medical school in Munich. He started his training as a resident at the University Hospital in Munich in 1985. In 1987 he joined as a registrar the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In 1989 he went back to Munich to finish his training first in General Surgery followed by a three-year additional training in cardiac surgery. In 1994 he started as a fellow of a cardiothoracic transplantation at the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, USA. In 1996 he got a position as Assistant Professor at the University Heart Center in Dresden, Germany. In 1997 he took a position as Associate Professor at the University of Munich. In 2001 he became chairman and full Professor at the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the University Hospital Hamburg Eppendorf. In 2005 he took over the position as chairman of the newly founded University Heart Center Hamburg. He served as president of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery from 2001 to 2002, as President of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation from 2014 to 2015 as Chancellor of the World Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery from 2023. He received his MD degree in 1995 at the University of Munich and his PhD degree at the University of Cape Town in 1992.