(Vienna, 01 July 2019) As from 01 July 2019, Karl Rössler will take over the Chair of Neurosurgery at MedUni Vienna and management of the Department of Neurosurgery at MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital. Until recently, he worked as Deputy Director of the Department of Neurosurgery at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU).
Karl Rössler's main research interests over the last few years have been in neuronavigation and intraoperative imaging in epilepsy surgery, brain tumour surgery and vascular neurosurgery at Erlangen University Hospital, one of the world's outstanding centres of excellence in intraoperative imaging. This enabled him to obtain ground-breaking findings in the area of epilepsy surgery, in particular, and to develop them within the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) as a board member of the Surgical Therapies Commission. Rössler intends to continue these research projects at the new intraoperative MRI centre at the Department of Neurosurgery of MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital, with the aim of establishing a cutting-edge, international centre for intraoperative imaging in neurosurgery, together with the Department of Radiology, Biomedical Imaging and Image-guided Therapy.
In addition to this, Karl Rössler wants to expand and intensify interdisciplinary collaboration with the neurological specialities at MedUni Vienna and establish the Comprehensive Center for Clinical Neurosciences. Intensified collaboration with the Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry, the Institute of Neurology (Obersteiner Institute) and the Center for Brain Research should help to ensure that basic research findings increasingly feed into neurosurgical treatments for national diseases such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease or depression and are used for new treatments. Synergies with the Comprehensive Cancer Center Vienna (CCC-CNS Unit) at MedUni Vienna should also be intensively utilised for the precision medicine in oncology. Neurological spinal surgery is to be more closely linked with trauma surgery and orthopaedics on an interdisciplinary level. Paediatric neurosurgery and skull-base surgery (meningioma, acoustic neuroma) are likewise to be developed by closer interdisciplinary collaboration with the associated disciplines. The Department should also play a pioneering role in open questions in gender medicine within the field of neurosurgery.
Other focuses are also to be international networking of clinical practice, research and advanced training of young specialist colleagues and also the treatment of patients with rare neurosurgical diseases, which will play an increasing role in future, especially in oncologic and vascular neurosurgery (in the subfields of endovascular neurosurgery and gamma knife surgery) and will increasingly be reflected in greater participation in international multi-centre studies.
Karl Rössler believes that "Neurosurgery should also be more available on undergraduate and postgraduate courses,” and he plans to establish a major lecture in neurosurgery and an internship in neurosurgery as part of the medical curriculum at MedUni Vienna and to provide more patient-based learning at the bedside and in the operating theatre.
About Karl Rössler
Karl Rössler studied medicine in Vienna and completed a postgraduate course in clinical and experimental neuropathology under Herbert Budka and Hans Lassmann at the Neurology Institute of the University of Vienna (now the Institute of Neurology and Center for Brain Research of MedUni Vienna). He completed his specialist training under Wolfgang Koos at the Department of Neurosurgery Vienna, where he was also awarded the Venia Docendi for neurosurgery and the professional title of University Professor by the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research. He went on to become Senior Doctor in charge of the Division of Neurosurgery at Feldkirch Main Hospital in Vorarlberg, before moving to Friedrich-Alexander University (FAU) Erlangen-Nuremberg as Deputy Director of the Department of Neurosurgery.
Date: Inaugural lecture Karl Rössler on September 20, 2019 (11:00 am) in the lecture hall center (Hörsaalzentrum) of the MedUni Vienna in the AKH Vienna (level 7). Registration is requested.