- Juergen Toft
Prof. Dr. Juergen Toft is a world-renowned knee specialist surgeon practising in
Munich ,Germany and a Professor at theUniversity of Milan inMilan ,Italy .Biography
Born on 4 May
1943 inEast Berlin where he grew up as the only child of Herbert Toft and Erna Toft. Toft studied medicine atHumboldt University of Berlin from1965 to1971 . From 1971 to1972 he served as an assistant researcher at the Berlin Institute of Industrial Medicine.In 1972 he managed to escape to
West Germany where he started his postgraduate training as anOrthopedic surgery atBiberach an der Riß . Following further training in Tailfingen andRatingen , as well as in the U.S. (ECFMG in1975 ), he obtained board certification as an orthopedic surgeon in1976 . In the same year he completed hisdoctoral thesis at theSaarland University and accepted a post as an orthopedic consultant at themunicipal hospital ofIngolstadt . In1980 he moved toNorth Rhine-Westphalia where he joined the medical team of the Fabricius Klinik inRemscheid , Germany's largest orthopedic hospital run by consultants, specialising in arthroscopic knee surgery and becoming one of the pioneers in Germany.When he founded Germany's first
outpatient kneesurgery center in Munich in1984 , he had 600 patients on his waiting list in Remscheid scheduled forarthroscopic knee surgery. In1989 he recruited the Dutchspine specialist, Drs. Thomas Hoogland, to join him and in 2000 another spine surgeon,Drs . Horst Dekkers, joined what had now expanded and been renamed in1997 as the Alpha Klinik. After gaining international recognition with 50,000 surgical patients from 70 countries, the Alpha Klinik was brought down bymedia coverage on one of its spine surgeons, Drs. Dekkers, who was faced with charges ofmalpractice . These media reports created the impression that the entire Alpha Klinik was under accusation, although neither Dr. Hoogland nor Prof. Toft had anything to do with that affair. After Drs. Dekker's dismissal and patients being scared away from Alpha Klinik, it was impossible for the remaining two surgeons to keep the hospital going and on August 1, 2008,insolvency was declared and the institution taken over by another hospital, in spite of its excellent reputation at home and abroad.As a consequence of these events, Toft founded his own Knee Center in the summer of2008 , known as Professor Toft Knee Center. He now serves as a consultant knee surgeon at the Starmed Klinik, a nearby and very modern private hospital.Prof. Toft has made his name in two areas. The first is the arthroscopic replacement of the
anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) which he was first to perform in Europe in1983 , thus instituting a revolution in cruciate ligament surgery. The other highlight in his work is abrasion arthroplasty, a technique introduced by his teacher, Professor Lanny L. Johnson of theMichigan State University inLansing , which Prof. Toft has developed into a very useful tool for "regeneration" of severelyarthritic knee joint s in order to preventknee replacement surgery. In recognition of these developments Prof. Toft was offered aprofessorship at the University of Milan in2005 . Together with Prof. Walter Pascale of the University of Milan, Prof. Toft founded the International Association for Biologic Joint Reconstruction in Munich in October2006 .In Germany Prof. Toft has become known through numerous television interviews as well as newspaper and magazine articles. In
2003 TIME magazine highlighted his abrasion technique as the new hope for arthriis patients. His patients include world-famous personalities from the realms of politics, sports and business.Books
"Knee Arthritis" Herbig, January 1999 ISBN 3-00-006520-2
External links
* [http://www.alphaklinik.com Alpha Klinik]
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