Chronology
The Development of the German Society of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery:
The study group of shoulder surgery as a progenitor of the DVSE in Germany was founded abroad under comparable circumstances.
Already in 1980, the inaugural international conference on surgery of the shoulder with the chairs L. Kessel and Charles Neer under the german participation of U. Laumann and R. Kölbel launched.
In 1982, The American Society of Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) was founded, followed by the founding of the European Society of Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (SECEC) in 1987 with the first SECEC congress in Paris in the same year.
On this basis, working groups were originated in 1983 with the first Shoulder workshop in Hamburg followed by similar workshops in Germany in (1985, 1986, 1988).
In these meetings of the active shoulder surgeons in Germany, a small circle, the current literature and new theories as well as surgical techniques were discussed and mediated. The contributions of these shoulder workshops of 1983,1985 and 1986 were collected in the central library of medicine in Cologne.
In 1987, the Working group Shoulder of the DGOT was founded by the members of the Hamburg shoulder workshop, especially R. Kölbel, A. Hedtmann, J. Zippel, R. Casser und H. Fett. After the SICOT congress in 1981 in Japan they were of the opinion that the german shoulder surgery was not adequately represented internationally. It was directed by R. Kölbel
The connection with the DGOT was formally established with the appeal to all university hospitals to collaborate.
The first topics were: standardized clinical examination, documentation of the clinical findings, adoption of the Constand and Murley Score as well as the introduction of multicenter studies for shoulder surgery, especially the surgical results of rotator cuff reconstructions under the guidance a working group in Bochum.
This working group of initially 20 members introduce the so-called “workshop-talks”.
These annual meetings were used by the members to share their experience concerning their clinical practice and were held in Borken, Hamburg/Bad Bramstedt, Hannover, Essen, Munich and Würzburg in the next years.
The annual meeting were usually uring the south-german congress of orthopedic surgery or the DGOT congress. In 1991 during the annual DGOUT meeting in Hamburg, the working group shoulder- and elbow surgery held their first own session with presentations from the members.
Achim Hedtmann was elected as the chair of the working group.
Because of difficulties with the government concerning the declarable activitiesother sections, the DGOT was disposed to introduce the division of the working groups. The DGOT further recommended the founding autonomous societies by the members of the DGOT. These societies should be called “sections of the DGOT”.
The intentions in the working group for shoulder and elbow surgery to become independent did not find a majority.
Under the impression, that the quality of meeting of the European Society for Shoulder- and Elbow Surgery 1991 in Würzburg and because of the scarce participation of german surgeons at these international meetings, the idea was formed that an independent german society need to be founded in order to promote the scientific activities in the area of shoulder- and elbow surgery.
During the working group meeting in Würzburg in1994 which was organized by Frank Gohlke with the topic “the partial defect of the rotator cuff”, it was decided to implement this idea.
A constitutional meeting at the orthopaedic univerty hospital “König Ludwig Haus”, the first executive board was elected (President: A. Hedtmann, first vice president: A. Reichelt, second vice president: F. Gohlke, treasurer: Ch. Melzer, editorship: R. Casser), to realize the ideas of the working group.
As additional anecdote, it should be mentioned the the voting cards were collected in the hat of Christopher Jobe (Loma Linda).
He was the first corresponding member of the DVSE and was invited as a guest speaker for the Hamburg working group meeting.
His talk was about “the posterosuperior impingement and the associated partial defect of the rotator cuff”.
As this meeting was held in german language, colleagues of Austria and Switzerland were also invited, among them Herbert Resch, the first president of SECEC.
The members of this founding meeting were traditionally predominantly members of the working group within the DGOT as well as colleagues with the same interests some of them trauma surgeons.
This last group meeting in Würzburg further consisted of demonstrations of surgical techniques (open t-shift stabilization, total elbow replacement, rotator cuff repair) as well as a symposium which was held at the University “am Hubland”. The topics were the importance of MRI as well as the presentation of different techniques for open and arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.
The presentations of this congress as well as the presentation of the working group “arthroscopy and endoscopic surgery” of the DGOT the year before were published 1996 by the “Thieme Verlag” under the title “Das Impingement Syndrom der Schulter” edited by J.Eulert and A. Hedtmann.
The foundation of the german society of shoulder- and elbow surgery (DVSE) was the base of further scientific activities at the following meetings of the DVSE:
Annual DVSE congresses
1. Würzburg | 1994 | J. Eulert und F. Gohlke
2. Salzburg | 1995) | H. Resch
3. Hamburg | 1996 | A. Hedtmann
4. Stuttgart | 1997 | P. Habermeyer
5. Staffelstein | 1998 | R. Casser
6. Freiburg | 1999 | A. Reichelt
7. Bad Homburg | 2000 | N. Wülker
8. München | 2001 | H.J. Refior
9. Neuss | 2002 | J. Jerosch
10. Heidelberg| 2003 | M. Loew
11. Köln | 2004 | T. Schneider
12. Weimar | 2005) | U. Irlenbusch
13. Wildbad Kreuth | 2006): U. Brunner
14. Münster | 2007 | J. Steinbeck
15. Hannover | 2008 | H. Lill
16. Hamburg | 2009 | A. Werner
17. Rosenheim | 2010 | F. Hoffmann
18. Stuttgart | 2011 | G. Bauer
19. Berlin | 2012 | F. Reuther und M. Scheibel
20. Würzburg | 2013 | F. Gohlke
21. Wiesbaden | 2014 | M. Rickert
22. Mannheim | 2015 | L.Lehmann und S. Lichtenberg
23. Bremen | 2016 | O. Rolf
24. Ludwigsburg | 2017 | P. Kasten und F. Mauch
25. Regensburg | 2018 | S. Greiner und M. Kääb
26. St. Gallen | 2019 | B. Jost und M. A. Zumstein
The positive development concerning the relationship to the euopean society of shoulder and elbow surgery (SECEC) as well as the increasing number of presentations of german participants at the SECEC meetings
demonstrated the high scientific quality of studies in Germany.
The prejudice of the SECEC at the beginning to establish a concurrent society could be removed. One reason was the constant participation of leading SECEC members e.g. Gilles Walch, Steve Copeland, Daniel Molé, Michel Mansat und Pascal Boileau as quest speakers at the DVSE meetings.Of importance was furthermore the commitment of Herbert Resch for the introduction of other german members in the executive board of the SECEC.
The close cooperation with the SECEC was strengthened by the organization of the SECEC meeting in Heidelberg in 2003 under the congress chairs M. Loew (DVSE) and Peter Habermeyer (SECEC).
In order to improve of the scientific exchange within the DVSE, a cooperation with the Hand surgeons was started under the quidance of Markus Loew with foundation of the Journal “Obere Extremität – Schulter,Ellenbogen, Hand”, the official publication journal of the DVSE.
From 2012, the DVSE further published a theme issue at the “Orthopäde”
The development of international relationships was enlarged. The the annual meeting 2011 in Stuttgart, the first “international session” was held.
The guest speakers were Antonio Gosak, founding member of the Argentinian society of shoulder and elbow surgery as well as Stefan Nijs, President of the Belgian society of orthopaedic and trauma surgery.
Subsequently, the first German-Argentinian congress for shoulder and elbow surgery was held under the lead of Daniel Moya and Antonio Gosak in September 2013 in Mendoza (Argentina).
At the following annual DVSE meeting in Berlin 2012,
Eiji Itoi (Japan), Joe de Beer (Südafrika), Alex Castagna (Italien), Roger Emery (Großbritannien) and Anders Ekelund (Schweden) were invited.
The invited international speakers were awarded as corresponding members of the society.
Since 2010, different committees were founded by U. Brunner in order to improve the structural work of the society.
The committee “scientific studies” started in 2011 under the lead of Markus Scheibel with independent Level I multicenter studies.
The committee “education” under the lead of U. Irlenbusch
introduced an “Obere Extremität” special issue: clinical examination of the shoulder in 2012.
Another main focus of the DVSE is the promotion of the young academics.
A national fellowship in 2004 as well as a research grant in 2005 was introduced by M. Loew.
In 2008, the curriculum for a certified education in shoulder and elbow surgery was established. Meanwhile, more than 40 DVSE certified meetings are held within the year.
Under the presidency of U. Brunner the young forum was founded under the engagement of Natascha Kraus to further promote the young academics interested in shoulder surgery.
2012 The Ellbow committee was founded by U. Brunner and Lars Müller, Philip Kasten and Sven Lichtenberg developed the elbow replacement registry analogue to the shoulder replacement registry of the DVSE and further started an international elbow fellowship.
In 2012, the Perthes Award was upgraded (3000.- Euro) and was related to basic science research.
Moreover, a mnw clinically based award was established, the Jochen Löhr Award (3000,- Euro) . Together with the Alwin Jäger foundation, the Alwin Jäger Award was further introduced in 2012 for an outstanding paper in shoulder rand elbow surgery.
The “best paper” award at the annual meeting of the DVSE are supported to present their work at the next SECEC meeting to compete with the award presentations of other national societies.
In the setting of the education for the new specialist for orthopedic and trauma surgery as well as the fusion of the SGOT/DGOOC and the DGU to become the DGOU in 2011, the DVSE became a section of the DGOU.
In 2018, the DVSE became with 1000 members the biggest german speaking organ society.
F. Gohlke, R. Kölbel, A. Hedtmann, U. Brunner, P. Magosch