Prof. Dr. F. E. Zanella—A Training and Development Mentor in Neuroradiology

Excerpt

Professor Friedhelm Zanella studied medicine in Cologne. He subsequently completed his training (which he had begun in 1979) under Professor Gerd Friedmann as a medical specialist in radiology at Cologne University Hospital. There he specialized in neuroradiology, a subdiscipline that at the time was not recognized as a field in which one could specialize and not necessarily regarded as a good career move for someone seeking to get ahead in the field of radiology. At an early stage he developed extensive expertise in the rapidly growing field of neuroradiological magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) diagnostics and in 1989 gained his postdoctoral lecturing qualification (habilitation) on the subject of “The role of magnetic resonance imaging in spinal and spinal canal diagnostics”. He already had a very clear idea of how neuroradiology, if it was to become a subspecialty characterized by excellence in both the national and international arenas, should be structured as a discipline in its own right within university healthcare provision and research, as well as in higher education. Friedhelm Zanella therefore turned down the position of senior physician integrated into radiological services, heading the neuroradiological team in Cologne. Instead, he moved to the Department of Neuroradiology at the University Hospital Eppendorf (UKE) in Hamburg under Professor Hermann Zeumer. His goal was, alongside cross-sectional imaging diagnostics, to use the emerging interventional procedures, such as carotid artery stenting and aneurysm coiling, and to firmly establish them within this discipline. To raise the profile of neuroradiology as a field, he recognized the need to impart this valuable knowledge to active and aspiring neuroradiologists alike, at in-service training events, which held appeal for this target group. Thus, as long ago as 1991 he and Hermann Zeumer established the symposium “Neuroradiologie Aktuell” (Current Neuroradiology), which to this day remains highly successful as an event at national level. …