Professor Christoph Dietrich is President of the European Federation of Societies of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB), which holds its 27th Congress EUROSON in Athens, Greece 6-8 November 2015.
1. What are your key areas of interest and research?
The pathology of gastrointestinal diseases and the use of ultrasound techniques in hepatology and gastroenterology. I am also interested in the future of ultrasound, which will be point-of-care ultrasound.
2. What are the major challenges in your field?
For ultrasound it is to compete with the resource-rich computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the radiologist lobby using CT and MRI, as ultrasound is a less recognised imaging method that has certain advantages.For example, ultrasound offers real-time dealing with the patient, quick decision making, no radiation exposure and point-of-care ultrasound decision making in daily routine.
3. What is your top management tip?
For me it is taking the best care of and concentrating on the patient.
4. What would you single out as a career highlight?
The combination of the combined use of patient care, science, medical education.
5. If you had not chosen this career path you would have become a…?
I would have been studying physics and philosophy.
6. What are your personal interests outside of work?
Every kind of nature, music and art.
7. Your favourite quote?
Always moving.
Prof. Dietrich is Chief of Internal Medicine 2 at Caritas Hospital in Bad Mergentheim, Germany. He took his medical degree in Hannover, and also studied Philosophy, Politics and History at University of Hannover. He was awarded a PhD from the University of Mainz on “The value of NMR in pituitary disorders”. He undertook his residencies in Germany at the universities of Munster (Department of Radiology), Tubingen and Frankfurt (Departments of Internal Medicine). He has specialist qualifications in internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology, haematology and oncology, pneumology, palliative care medicine, geriatric medicine and proctology. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Frankfurt, and has been Chief of Internal Medicine at Caritas Hospital since 2002. He previously served as Honorary Secretary of EFSUMB from 2007-2011. He serves on the Board of the German Society for Endoscopy and Imaging Procedures (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Endoskopie und Bildgebende Verfahren) as President in 2013. He is the Sonography section editor for Zeitschrift für Gastroenterologie. He is on the Board of the World Journal of Gastroenterology and is a honorary member of the Polish Society of Ultrasound. He recently achieved the MBA on International Hospital and Health Care Management.
Links
Further reading
Dietrich C (2014) EUROSON preview. HealthManagement, 14(2): 10-11.
