Honorary Membership in the German Society of Neuroradiology for Professor Hans Hacker*

* Laudatio presented at the annual meeting of the German Society of Neuroradiology 2007, Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

© Dr. Albrecht Aulich

The German Society of Neuroradiology has two ways of honoring its members and their outstanding achievements. It bestows awards for the latter, or honors the lifetime achievements of one of our discipline’s practitioners. In addition to purely scientific recognition, the Society grants honorary memberships to those personalities who have inspired and advanced the science of neuroradiology in terms of substance as well as its position in the public eye.

The German Society of Neuroradiology is granting you an honorary membership, dear Professor Hacker, and in so doing we honor a man whose achievements have left an indelible imprint on German and European neuroradiology over the decades. Though you are well known to most of your colleagues, please allow me to provide an account of your academic career, which may seem rather arbitrary in light of the depth of your many achievements.

Your activities as a neuroradiologist are closely allied with the beginning of the discipline in Germany. You, together with other neuroradiologists such as Sigurd Wende and Kurt Decker, played an essential role in its genesis and during the discipline’s infancy. Like them, you also started out in the clinical neurosciences, moving on to neuroradiology, which made you one of the very few neuroradiologists with a deep understanding of the field of neurology.

After studying medicine in Freiburg, Paris and Munich, where, in 1956, you received your PhD, you did your clinical internship under Kurt Decker in Munich and Richard Jung in Freiburg. Your knack of cultivating and nurturing international contacts was apparent already then. You spent 2 years as a research fellow in Bill Sweet’s department of neurosurgery at Harvard. That international perspective was to continue throughout your life, right down to the present. You not only divide your time between two homes – one here in Germany, the other in Italy – but also among many friends here and the world over.

You decided on pursuing a career in neuroradiology, when neurology Professor Karl Kleist in Frankfurt, predicting the future importance of “neuroradio-diagnostics”, as it was then called, established and furthered those institutes at his clinic on the Main. In 1964 you became the director of the X-ray department that was later incorporated into the neurosurgical clinic under the direction of Richard Frowein. After your second doctorate (“habilitation”) in 1969, you were named professor of neuroradiology, becoming the director of the Department of Neuroradiology of the University Clinic in Frankfurt, which you built up with great success and directed until 1996. Thus a circle is harmoniously closed here in Frankfurt today as we make you an honorary member at the Society’s annual meeting.

At just about the same time as the establishment of one of the first German departments of neuroradiology, you were founding member of the German Society of Neuroradiology in 1970, and as such organized, in 1971, the first annual DGNR meeting. The Society’s creation turned out to be a milestone in the history of this discipline, giving it a strong sense of identity and purpose.

From today’s perspective, you also became involved at a very early date in the development of neuroradiology at the European level, long before any political or otherwise formal efforts were made by the European Union. In 1973 you were named president of the fourth congress of the European Society of Neuroradiology in Frankfurt.

You have been an active and lifelong participant in the political aspect of academic life here in Germany and on a European level. You were, for example, director of the European Course in Neuroradiology in 1991, as well as the German national delegate to the European Society of Neuroradiology for many years. You were also a member of the board of the DGNR, and a founding member of the scientific journal Klinische Neuroradiologie (now Clinical Neuroradiology). Using your prestige as one of the best-known German neuroradiologists, you continued to push for recognition of the discipline as a separate science, and you supported lobbying efforts through relentless public-relations activities.

Listing all your national and international activities might take all day and create the impression that you spent most of your time on the road. Not so! Your scientific efforts have been as important to German neuroradiology as have your sociopolitical contributions. Your scientific endeavors have been focused on three main areas: diseases of the venous system, computed tomography (CT), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It is mainly thanks to your investigations in angiography – the subject of your habilitation – that we have fundamental knowledge of the anatomy of the veins, variations in venous norms, and diseases of the venous system. These findings appeared in various publications and in the still valid chapter on venous diseases in the radiology handbook, as well as in Hans Newton’s unique multivolume treatise on neuroradiology. Your seminal interest in the vascular system also led to your involvement in noninvasive diagnostic techniques such as CT angiography (CTA) and MR angiography (MRA), in whose development you were also intimately involved.

You broke new ground in 1974 with the introduction of computed tomography. In June of that year, a few weeks before your arch rival Sigurd Wende in Mainz carried out the second CT in Germany, you performed the first, then referred to as a “cat scan”. That was perhaps the beginning of what was a spirited animosity between two leading neuroradiologists that lasted for years. The CT angiography technology we now take for granted was developed by you and Siemens as dynamic computed tomography, and the world was your guest in Frankfurt as that diagnostic method was greeted with worldwide acceptance. When we speak of the pioneering spirit, we have your enthusiasm in mind in the way you promoted the dynamic new diagnostic method of CT. Your foresight has been well rewarded, and one cannot imagine modern diagnostic medicine without the benefits of CTA.

Your analytically sharp, scientific mind also came to bear in the early days of MRI, when we used to hear statements like “what do we need these white-noise images for?” You managed to overcome the reservations of investment-wary university bureaucrats by cooperating with a private practice in Frankfurt, carrying out the first MRIs and gaining valuable experience. You continued to expand your expertise in highly demanding MRI techniques up until and beyond your retirement from the university in 1996.

Retirement did not mean inactivity for you, rather it meant that a German neuroradiologist evolved into an Italian one. From 1997 until 2000 you were the head of the magnetic resonance tomography department in Pordenone’s large community hospital, combining that engagement with the distinct pleasures of living in Venice. 2004 saw you initiate several research projects based on 3-Tesla MRI in Bologna, which won’t be your last research endeavor, we suspect! In recognition of your achievements in Italy you were awarded membership in the “Primavera di Neuroradiologia” – a distinction rarely bestowed on foreigners. Furthermore, you were nominated as honorary member of the Italian Association of Neuroradiology (AINR).

I am approaching the conclusion of this encomium of Professor Hacker. Please permit me to add a few comments about the private Hans Hacker. Across all the years together in the German family of neuroradiologists, we have come to know you as a discerning, analytically precise, deeply probing clinical neuroradiologist, scientist and partner who relishes debate and discussion, and who is open to the opinions of others. You also have a strong philanthropic sense. We have also come to know you as a true lover of the arts, one who, upon leaving the congress hall, would enjoy lively nonneuroradiologic conversation. Your great love of classical and contemporary music became apparent, and with notable modesty you describe yourself as a “passable” fiddler.

The importance of art and music to you is revealed by your launching of a project aiming to further the intercultural education of children through music, dance, games, and theater. You even managed to secure the support of the Hertie Foundation for this endeavor. It is a pleasure to observe your enthusiasm for this new engagement, as you show the same dedication you devoted to neuroradiology all your life.

When asked how she sees her father, the author Katharina Hacker answered: “… he has widened our horizons, broadened our minds, and made us livelier and more generous in spirit.” That applies in equal measure to your contribution to German neuroradiology, dear Professor Hacker!

Professor Hacker, the German Society of Neuroradiology thanks you for all you have done for our discipline, and is pleased to hereby confer upon you this honorary membership today.

Frankfurt/Main, August 31, 2007

Martin Schumacher
President of the European Society of Neuroradiology