Hans-Joachim Riesner

Dr. Riesner is the fourth medical staff officer physician of the Trauma Surgery Research Group at the Bundeswehr Hospital Ulm (UFO), which was founded in 2009, to complete his scientific work with a habilitation. The members of the UFO are thus following in the tradition of surgical and trauma surgery research founded in Ulm by Colonel Prof. Dr. Heinz Gerngross (1947–2005), the long-standing chief physician of the Surgical Clinic.

In his habilitation thesis, Dr. Riesner dealt very intensively with osteoporotic fractures of the spine and their surgical treatment. The focus was on the use of cement augmentation to improve the stability of the pedicle screws in an osteoporotic bone. His work is also clearly relevant for the medical service of the German Armed Forces. Since the Bundeswehr hospitals are almost all integrated into the civilian bed requirements plans of the federal states, geriatric orthopaedics and geriatric traumatology play an increasing role there. The scientific examination of such questions is thus a conditio sine qua non. With regard to operational surgery, this patient group is also of relevant importance, as complex thinking, which is of crucial importance in an assignment abroad, can be trained very well here. In addition, the treatment of such injuries leads to a significant gain in knowledge and routine for the treatment of spinal traumas, as they occur in typical applications. The assessment of the clinical findings in vertebral fractures must be reliably mastered by operational surgeons. Both the conservative and the surgical treatment of geriatric traumatological and geronto-orthopaedic patients train these skills and are therefore relevant for use in several respects.

Senior Field Physician Dr. Riesner works in the Clinic for Trauma Surgery and Orthopaedics of the German Armed Forces Hospital Ulm as Senior Physician and also heads the Special Orthopaedic Surgery Section here. His scientific work corresponds excellently with his clinical work. The habilitation is at the end of a long road that has been delayed due to various difficult conditions. I am therefore particularly pleased that he has now successfully taken this essential step in his scientific work and, above all, in the teaching activities associated with it.