Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2020; 68(06): 459-461
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1715507
Obituary

Professor Peter E. Lange, MD (15-7-1935 to 17-6-2020)

Felix Berger
1   Deutsches Herzzentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany
,
Joachim Hebe
2   Center for Electrophysiology at Heart-Center Bremen, Bremen, Germany
,
Jan-Hendrik Nürnberg
3   Center for Electrophysiology at Heart-Center Bremen, Bremen, Germany
,
Karl-Robert Schirmer
4   Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Kardiologie und angeborene Herzfehler e.V., Düsseldorf, Germany
,
On behalf of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Kardiologie und Angeborene Herzfehler e.V. and all his colleagues › Author Affiliations
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Prof. Peter E. Lange, 15.7.1935 to 17.6.2020; photo: F. Berger, private (with permission).

Prof. Dr. Peter E. Lange, MD, a visionary and one of the greats of German pediatric cardiology, said goodbye to us forever on June 17, 2020. There are only a few who influenced pediatric cardiology in Germany as significantly as he did at the turn of the millennium. Many pediatric cardiologists were shaped, encouraged, and challenged by him. He was always oriented toward his ideals, visions, and goals without losing sight of the person, patients, or employees.

Prof. Lange was born on July 15, 1935 near Hamburg and grew up in the far North of Germany, in Hohenwestedt in Schleswig-Holstein. His father was a physician in private practice and his mother a midwife. Prof Lange set his career goal at a very young age, since he was aiming to take over his father's practice after graduation.

From 1957 until 1963, he studied medicine at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel with a brief stay at the Free University of Berlin from 1960 to 1961. Between 1963 and 1964, he was an assistant physician in Kiel, Rendsburg, and Husum. In 1964, he finished his doctoral thesis under the guidance of Prof. Heintzen in Kiel: “Basal metabolic rate in infants when awake, in natural and medication-induced sleep.”

After that it took him and his family to the United States. In 1964/65, he held an internship at the Orange Memorial Hospital in Orange/New Jersey (USA), from 1965 until 1971 at the Baylor University College of Medicine in Houston/Texas. He received a degree in Internal Medicine and Cardiology in the United States, continuing to pursue his goal of taking over his father's medical office after completing his education. He married in Texas and laid the foundation for his family of six with his wife Karin. To avoid being drafted into the military in the USA, he had to leave the country for at least 2 years, which brought him back to the clinic of Prof. Heintzen in Kiel, one of the most renowned pediatric cardiology institutions in Germany at that time.

From 1971 until 1974, he held a residency there and was promoted to senior physician and head of the invasive cardiac catheter diagnostics department in 1974.

Throughout this period at the latest, Prof. Lange started, in addition to great commitment to the clinical care of his patients, to address very intensively scientific questions in the field of congenital heart defects. Coming from Prof. Heintzen's school, it was to be expected that he would concentrate his attention particularly on the quantification and exact characterization of pathological disease mechanisms. As early as the 1970s, he elaborately researched the ventricular function of the right and left ventricle and meticulously worked on developing their exact volumetry and functional analysis in terms of size and number. As part of his research, he focused on two frequent complex clinical pictures: Tetralogy of Fallot and Transposition of the Great Arteries. Even if today the entire medical community reports on how restricted the function of the left ventricle can be in patients with Tetralogy of Fallot, especially if showing pronounced to free pulmonary valve insufficiency. This was uncovered territory in the 1980s and, until then, had gone by unnoticed.

His utmost fascination, however, was dedicated to the right ventricle, the “forgotten ventricle,” as it is called in the world of cardiologists. Analyzing and decoding the special cardiac adaptation mechanisms on acute, subacute, and chronic pressure and/or volume loads were his area of expertise and the center of his entire scientific and clinical life.

In 1983, his “Habilitation” “Quantitative Dextro-Video-Angiography - Method and Clinical Application” followed.

This work was very surprising even for the faculty in Kiel, as the first version exceeded by far a volume of 1,000 pages and was initially focused on analyzing the right and left ventricles. The habilitation committee in Kiel was not prepared for such an extensive scientific debate. The initial version was by no means rejected because of its scientific content, but rather because of the noneditable scope. The new submission of the paper then included only the analysis of the RV function by eliminating all results related to the left ventricle, and was then accepted, if still very extensive, as a habilitation treatise for the field of experimental cardiology.

After numerous listings in appointment procedures and the offer of a professorship in Frankfurt, Prof. Lange had the opportunity to move to former West Berlin, which until then had been leading an unremarkable, island-like cardiologic existence.

In 1988, he was appointed Professor of Pediatrics with a focus on pediatric cardiology at the Free University of Berlin and took over the leadership of the Department of Congenital Heart Disease and Pediatric Cardiology at the German Heart Center in Berlin.

April 1st, 1988 marks the foundation of the Department of Congenital Heart Defects and Pediatric Cardiology of the German Heart Center (founding members Prof. Dr. Lange, PD Dr. Hausdorf and F. Berger). In the context of his appointment, he set as a short-term goal the development of the department into one of the most important clinics among the first five in Germany within 5 years, at a time in which Berlin was infrastructurally isolated. His plan encountered some reservations at first.

After the founding of the Clinic for Congenital Heart Defects at the German Heart Center in Berlin, patients with congenital heart defects were no longer forced to transfer to West Germany for surgery. The spectrum of clinical care and scientific work of the clinic developed and grew rapidly. The project also benefited from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a historic event, which was significant for the further growth. With the construction of a new children's ward next to a pediatric cardiology intensive care unit in the south wing of the German Heart Center building in December 1993, a professional, specialized unit was also created.

In 1998, he established the Reference Center for Adults with Congenital Heart Disease, setting the course for the development of a professional medical care for this specific patient group. Following this program, a new specialization for physicians and departments came to life, the “ACHD” certification (in German: EMAH). Also, in 1998, he founded the program “Bridge for Children with Heart Disease,” allowing gravely ill children from Bosnia an unbureaucratic way to seek treatment in Berlin. Over 350 children took part in the program and were treated in Berlin.

From May 2000, he assumed provisional management of the pediatric cardiology facilities of the Charité—Medical University Berlin in addition to the position of director of the German Heart Center.

In 2001, he received the Federal Cross of Merit for his services within the program “Bridge for Children with Heart Disease” and for his contribution to the field of pediatric cardiology in Germany.

In 2001, he founded the Registry for Congenital Heart Defects, which has been operating very successfully since 2003 as the National Registry for Congenital Heart Defects, including a valuable database of patients of all complexity levels.

In 2003, Prof. Lange officially founded the Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects, an academic study platform funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which was based on the Registry for Congenital Heart Defects as its centerpiece and scientific data platform. Due to the special pseudonymized data acquisition method, it was possible to provide for the first time longitudinal follow-up examinations, while respecting data protection aspects. This turned out to be a true scientific treasure trove for the world of congenital heart disease in Germany.

Prof. Lange acted very successfully until 2002 as spokesman for the Registry and, starting in 2002, as spokesman for the Competence Network. He continued beyond his retirement to serve as the engine and basis of the success of this unique scientific network.

Prof. Lange retired in 2004, passing on to his successor what was by then one of the most renowned pediatric cardiology clinics in Germany.

Even if he was no longer clinically active, he still felt very committed to the scientific work in the field of pediatric cardiology and continued acting as spokesman for the Competence Network for Congenital Heart Defects until 2008.

As a record of his professional achievements, the following can be listed:

A total of 14,000 children and adults with congenital heart defects were treated as inpatients during his term of office. He (co-)authored 390 scientific publications in peer-reviewed, mostly international journals and 24 book chapters, of which 28 were published with him as the first author and 170 as the last author. His cumulative impact factor was over 400 between 1995 and 2005 alone. He successfully supervised a total of 58 doctoral theses and 12 habilitations.

In 2007, he was awarded the honorary membership of the German Society for Pediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Disease in recognition of his services to German pediatric cardiology.

All this indicates an extremely successful working life, but tells far too little about the extraordinary person that Peter E. Lange was. His patients and their parents valued and loved him. They often experienced him as a stormy, but friendly and open person, always finding the necessary time, with that peculiar language, a crossover between Low German and High German. We, his colleagues, knew and appreciated him as a deserved and persistent, always responsive workaholic and, moreover, as one of the great strategists in pediatric cardiology in Germany. Prof. Lange understood how to cast a spell on his counterpart; he was a master of motivation and integration.

Due to his pronounced flexibility and his enormous empathy for the situation of his counterparts, he not only had a sympathetic ear at all times but often also offered problem solving options, regardless of what his own issue might have been at that moment. Sometimes wildly gesticulating, often flowery and wordy, he mostly succeeded with the help of his characteristic determination and skillful negotiation tactics. With sophisticated, sometimes tenacious dialectics, he almost always prevailed in persuading his apparently insightful but sometimes resigned counterpart to the procedure he proposed.

Prof. Peter E. Lange was a man of incredible persistence, assertiveness, persuasiveness, determination, trustworthiness, loyalty, and inviolable integrity and a great sense of humor. One of his main focuses was the promotion of young professionals. He surrounded himself with young scientists, junior doctors, MTAs, and nurses to pursue, as a team, the implementation and improvement of his vision of the world of congenital heart disease by also allowing others with similar beliefs to take part in the process.

Prof. Lange was one of the first in Germany to recognize adults with congenital heart disease as a “problem patient group,” who were not adequately represented in adult medicine due to the complexity of their disorder. Against all the resistance encountered in associations, committees and even in the German Society for Pediatric Cardiology, Prof. Lange succeeded in establishing the Reference Center for congenital heart defects in adulthood in Berlin, setting a milestone for the structure of the medical needs and necessities of adult patients with congenital heart defects. The way, however, in which he accomplished that, was often unusual.

Prof. Lange was always someone who was keen on achieving this vision with young, junior staff members, elected from its midst and departmental environment, entrusting them with growing duties and functions, allowing them to mature, only to then qualify them for the next higher level of responsibility. Twenty-one senior positions in Germany and abroad, 14 university professorships in German-speaking countries, and countless independent pediatric cardiologists descend from his school, directly or via interstations, and impressively demonstrate the success of his method.

He always demanded high performance from his colleagues and employees, himself constantly demonstrating maximum efficiency and leading by example. It was and still is of great significance that he was unreservedly committed to his once-given word, whatever the cost, this particularly characterizing him as a person, but he also expected the same from others. All of this led to a specific “corporate identity,” which makes the “Lange student” immediately recognizable.

Regardless of the gratitude, the friendly, or rather almost familiar relationship and the unbroken deep bond of trust among his students, it will be a genuine concern for all of us to continue his life's legacy as he exemplified it. He was not only an excellent pediatric cardiologist, not just a brilliant scientist, but above all an outstanding person.

“The most beautiful thing a person can leave behind is the smile on the faces of the ones who think of him.” (unknown philosopher)



Publication History

Article published online:
17 September 2020

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