Maurice Edmond Müller
Maurice Edmond Müller ( born March 28, 1918 in Biel, † May 10, 2009 in Bern ) was a Swiss surgeon. He is considered a pioneer of orthopedic surgery.
Life and work
Maurice E. Müller grew up as the oldest of five children bilingually in the city of Biel. His high school he was in 1936, after which he studied in Neuchatel, Lausanne and Bern Medicine, interrupted by a multi-year military service during the Second World War.
After graduating in 1944 he began in ancient Balgrist to work in Zurich. Soon, he volunteered for a one-year medical missionary in Abyssinia, which began in 1946. Back in Switzerland, he earned at the Kantonsspital Liestal his Surgery ( FMH ).
He then toured Europe centers of Traumatology and Orthopaedics and visited the pioneers of bone surgery to get to know their procedures. So it was with Max Lange ( surgeon ) in Bad Tolz, Georg Hohmann in Munich and Friedrich Pauwels in Aachen, the founder of modern biomechanics at the hip joint. He also visited Robert Merle d' Aubigné in Paris and van Nes in Leiden, the pioneers of modern hip surgery and joint replacement - what should be the focus of his medical practice in addition to the AO. For the treatment of fractures of the visit to the pioneer of plate osteosynthesis Robert Danis in 1950 in Belgium was groundbreaking.
See also: Pioneers of osteosynthesis
Again returned to Switzerland, was until 1956 the training of specialized orthopedics ( FMH ) at the Orthopaedic University Hospital Balgrist in Zurich. There he completed his habilitation on the topic The hüftnahen femoral osteotomy. His inaugural lecture was in December 1957.
From 1960 he worked as head physician of the orthopedic- traumatology department of the Kantonsspital St. Gallen. In between, he was " Köfferli " Surgeon in many hospitals in the country. From 1963 to 1980 he was professor of orthopedics and surgery of the musculoskeletal system at the University of Bern and Director of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Inselspital in Bern.
In 1958 he founded, together with twelve other surgeons the " Association for the Study of Internal Fixation ", the implants and instruments developed for the treatment of bone fractures. In collaboration with the bed Lacher instrument maker Robert Mathys completely new tool sets have been developed for the treatment of fractures by means of screws, plates and nails and successfully marketed, from which emerged the now classic four standard boxes of the AO, which are marketed by the company Synthes within two years.
His second work, the studies on an artificial joint, left him in 1965 found the company Protek AG. She had the purpose to further develop his invention of hip joint prosthesis and marketable. The profits flowed from the 1974 Fondation Maurice E. Müller. From these funds the training, research and documentation in orthopedic surgery at the University of Bern have been funded. In 1983, the M.E. Müller Foundation of North America established to promote education and research activities for orthopedic surgeons in North America. In 1990 he sold his stake in Sulzer AG.
He was an honorary citizen of the city of Bern and namesake of the MEM Research Center for Orthopaedic Surgery at the University there.
Maurice Müller was a significant patron of the arts and founder of the Zentrum Paul Klee, and the Children's Museum Creaviva in Bern.