German professor of orthopaedic surgery (1948–2022)
Rüdiger Döhler FRCSEd (24 August 1948 – 28 September 2022) was a German professor of orthopedic surgery.
Life.
Döhler grew up in Rochlitz and East Berlin. In 1958, his family fled from the GDR to Bremerhaven (then Port of Embarkation for the US troops in Germany). After graduating from a classic-languages school he joined the German Navy and from 1968 through 1974 studied medicine in Kiel with a break in Hamburg and Heidelberg.
In 2014 he moved again to Plau am See, where he died on 28 September 2022.
Clinical career.
In 1976, Döhler was awarded his doctoral degree at the University of Kiel. He was trained in pathology (L.-D. Leder, Essen), surgery (G. Heinemann, Minden) and orthopedics (W. Blauth, Kiel) and achieved the acknowledgement as orthopedic surgeon in 1983.
In March 1984, he went to Edinburgh and did clinical work at the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital and, with a grant of the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" (German Research Council), performed basic research at the University of Edinburgh (Sean P. F. Hughes).
In August 1985 he returned to Kiel, and three years later he moved to the University of Münster for spinal surgery (H. H. Matthiass). In 1990, he quit cold orthopedics and re-embarked on (trauma) surgery in Hamburg-Altona. There, he achieved his second acknowledgement as general surgeon (1992) and finished his habilitation with the neuroanatomist Werner Lierse.
After German unification in 1995, he was appointed head of the then new hospital in Plau am See, Mecklenburg (former GDR).
Döhler operated on children from Africa and Central Asia for the "Friedensdorf International" and, on behalf of the "Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future", on former Nazi slave laborers from Poland and Ukraine.
Military.
For becoming a reserve officer Döhler joined the German Navy in October 1967. While studying medicine he had his military training in the Territorials.