On February 24th after a long and brave battle, Prof. Hans – Henning Eckstein passed away.

Prof. Eckstein was born in 1955. Completed his education (German, History and Medicine) at the University Ruprecht-Karls in Heidelberg in 1985 and received his Ph Degree in 1995. He was trained in General Surgery until 1993, following by Vascular Surgery training 1996-1999. He then served as a Medical Director for Vascular Surgery of the Klinikum Ludwigsburg 1999-2003. During this time, he received the “Forschungspreis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Gefäßchirurgie” (1997) and “Alexis-Carrel-Preis der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Gefäßchirurgie” (1999) awards.

In 2004, he was elected Director of the Section of Vascular Surgery at the Klinik und Poliklinik für Vaskuläre und Endovaskuläre Chirurgie am Universitätsklinikum rechts der Isar der Technischen Universität München (TUM) after the retirement of Prof. Peter Maurer. In 2009, he was elected Professor of the newly established Chair of Vascular and Endovascular surgery at the TUM. Under his Directorship and his moto “Knowledge promotes healing” his department became one of the most prominent vascular centers in Germany with an international recognition, with renown faculty like Dr. A. Zimmermann, Dr. G. Biro, Dr. U. Werthern, Dr. T. Stadlbauer, Dr. F. Meisner, Dr. H. Wendorff and Dr. M. Kallmayer and areas of expertise including aortic pathology, carotid artery disease, PAOD, end stage renal disease, vein problems and angiology. In addition, he developed a very successful research program of vascular biology, the Munich Vascular Biobank and Biological Imaging with the collaboration of prominent scientists like Profs. L. Maegdefessel, J. Pelisek and V. Ntziachristos.

He has served as Editor of the “GEFÄSSCHIRURGIE” in 2006 and President of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gefäßchirurgie (2009-2010) where he was instrumental in establishing the SPACE 1 & 2 studies and the mandatory registration for carotid operations.

In 2011 he was elected President of the Section and Board of Vascular Surgery of the UEMS. True to his passion for training and education, he became one of the co-founders of Vascular International and promoted the use of models and simulators in vascular training.

In 2010, he established the Munich Vascular Conference (MAC) “where doctors meet science” as was his vision. This conference became a leading scientific meeting in Europe, providing an invaluable experience to the participants, especially the young doctors in training, giving them the opportunity to interact with the most prominent figures in the field of vascular diseases worldwide.

In April of 2017 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and at the same year of the University of Thessaly, Greece. In 2019, he became Visiting Professor at the Pittsburgh University, USA. Also, he had contributed in a fruitful collaboration between the annually organized Munich Vascular Conference (MAC) and the Leading Innovative Vascular Education (LIVE) Symposium by the Institute of Vascular Diseases, Greece holding joint sessions in both conferences with important participation of German and Greek vascular surgeons.

Prof. Eckstein was a prolific writer with more than 23.000 citations, an h-factor of 70 and numerous chapters in vascular textbooks.

He was fond of Greece, which he visited several times and a great friend for many of us who had the opportunity to collaborate with him, benefit from his wisdom, his free spirit, his immense knowledge of history, philosophy, politics and particularly music.

Overall, the best term to describe Prof. Hans-Henning Eckstein is a Renaissance Man: Α polymath, a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, a Homo Universalis.

He survived by his beloved wife Dr. Jutta Eckstein, his three children, his grandchildren. He would be greatly missed by his family, his friends and the world’s vascular community who lost a Crown Prince.