Franz Loogen (13 April 1919 – 3 September 2010) was a German cardiologist. He was a contributor to the popularization of cardiac catheterization and the independent specialty of internal medicine in Germany.ESC News: Founding father of German cardiology, Franz Loogen, celebrates his 90th (at archive.org), 2 July 2009.Berndt Lüderitz: 80 Jahre DGK – ein denkwürdiges Jubiläum. Cardio News 2007; 10(9): 26-27. He held the first cardiology chair outside paediatrics in Germany and founded the "Düsseldorf School of Cardiology".Michael Piper, u. a.: In memoriam Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Franz Loogen , Pressemitteilung Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, 5 September 2010. He also worked for the Germany national football team at the 1954 World Cup as team doctor.
Career Franz Loogen was born in Baesweiler near Aachen as the son of the administrative official Melchior Loogen and his wife Maria. After graduating from the Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium in Aachen in 1937, Loogen studied human medicine in Cologne, where he took his medical examination in 1939. For the 1st clinical semester he transferred to the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, as the University of Cologne had been closed at the beginning of the war.Jochen Aumiller: Loogens Steilpaß für die deutsche Kardiologie. Cardio News 1999; 2(4): 14-15. He was able to complete the second clinical semester in Cologne again. Loogen was then drafted into military service with the Gebirgsjäger in Füssen. After frontline medical service in France and Russia (1940–1942), he joined a student company. A leave of absence to finish his medical studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München saved his life, as his unit was destroyed near Leningrad shortly after his return from Russia.Eva Kmoth, L. Seipel: As time goes by. Z Kardiol 2004; 93: 240-241.Günter Breithardt, L. Seipel: Zum Tode von Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h. c. Franz Loogen (13.04.1919–03.09.2010). Der Kardiologe 2010; 4: 500-501. At the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Loogen continued his studies from the summer semester of 1942 and passed the state examination in medicine on 13 July 1944, as well as receiving his doctorate with the thesis "Über den sog. ärztlichen Kunstfehler" (On the so-called medical malpractice) from the surgeon Karl Vossschulte (1907-2001). He then had to return to military service and spent three months as a hospital doctor in Rosenheim.
In September 1944, while on home leave, Loogen was taken first as an American and then as a British prisoner of war, from which he was not released until January 1948. In British captivity he played in an English soccer team and worked as a camp doctor in the prisoner-of-war camp in Horbling. During this time, he met an English doctor of German origin who (then illegally) provided him with penicilline as early as 1946, with which Loogen was able to successfully treat fellow prisoners suffering from endocarditis.
Loogen had been married to Hedwig, née Tillis († 2009) since 1943. The marriage produced one daughter.
Professional life After his release from captivity, Loogen initially worked from 1948 as an unpaid volunteer assistant doctor with Erich Boden at the 1st Medical Clinic of the Düsseldorf Medical Academy, the forerunner of the University of Düsseldorf, which was founded in 1965. There he met Otto Bayer, with whom he performed the first cardiac catheter examinations in 1948/49, and became a member of the cardiology working group headed by Bayer at the 1st Medical Clinic. In the course of 1949 he became ward physician and scientific assistant. His first scientific field of work was endocarditis.Friedrich-Ernst Schmengler, F. Loogen: Über die Endocarditis lenta als „reaktive Retikulose“ mit besonderem Hinweis auf Veränderungen der Leber. Dtsch med Wochenschr 1952; 77: 259-64.Erich Boden, F. Loogen: Rückschau und Stand der Endocarditis-lenta-Behandlung. Dtsch med Wochenschr 1952; 77: 1044-9. 1952: Loogen sets up a cardiology outpatient clinic in the Medical Clinic. The number of patients increases steadily. 1954: Publication of the first German monograph on cardiac catheterization,Otto Bayer, F. Loogen, H.H. Wolter: Der Herzkatheterismus bei angeborenen und erworbenen Herzfehlern. Thieme-Verlag, Stuttgart 1954 dedicated to the later Nobel Prize winner Werner Forßmann, which became the "bible" of every interventional cardiologist. 1955: Franz Grosse-Brockhoff, director of the 1st Medical Clinic, officially appoints Loogen to head the cardiology working group. 1957: Habilitation under Grosse-Brockhoff with the thesis "Pulmonary hypertension in congenital heart defects with high current volume (ductus arteriosus apertus, ventricular septal defect, atrial septal defect)".F. Loogen: Der pulmonale Hochdruck bei angeborenen Herzfehlern mit hohem Stromvolumen (Ductus arteriosus apertus, Ventrikelseptumdefekt, Vorhofseptumdefekt). Arch f Kreislaufforschung 1958; 28: 1-55, doi:10.1007/BF02119228. 1959: Senior physician at the 1st Medical Clinic. 1960: Joins the then "German Society for Cardiovascular Research" (DGK), today: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kardiologie (German Society for Cardiology - Cardiovascular Research). 1963: Appointment as adjunct professor. 1965: Appointed associate professor. Loogen takes over the newly created extraordinary - and in the Federal Republic of Germany first - chair for "Internal Medicine, especially Cardiology" in Düsseldorf. In the same year, the University of Düsseldorf is founded from the former Düsseldorf Medical Academy. 1966: Head of the Department of Cardiology at the 1st Medical Clinic. 1967: the associate professorship is converted into a full professorship and Loogen is appointed full professor. 1968 to 1985: Chairman of the Collaborative Research Centre "Cardiology" (SFB 30) of the German Research Foundation at the University of Düsseldorf.Universität Düsseldorf: Medizin: DFG stärkt Herzforschung an der HHU (on archive.org), 24 January 2005 1969 to 1993: Editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular Research. 1969 to 1972: Editor - together with Konrad Spang, Stuttgart - of the Archiv für Kreislaufforschung. 1969: The former tuberculosis ward is converted into the new Department of Cardiology of the 1st Medical Clinic of the University of Düsseldorf. 1971: Call (primo et unico loco) to the Chair of Cardiology at the University of Heidelberg. During the negotiations to remain in Düsseldorf, Loogen achieves an increase in the number of cardiology beds to 90. 1972: 1st Medical Clinic of the University of Düsseldorf is subdivided and Loogen is appointed head of the new Clinic B. In the same year he is awarded the specialist title of internal medicine with a sub-specialty in cardiology. 1972: Elected to the Board of the European Society of Cardiology. 1975: Elected Chairman of the German Society for Cardiovascular Research and Conference President of the DGK Annual Conference in Bad Nauheim.DGK: Vorsitzende, Präsidenten, Tagungspräsidenten und Geschäftsführer 1976: Appointed Medical Director of the Medical Institutions of the University of Düsseldorf. 1980 to 1984: President of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC)ESC: Past Presidents of the European Society of Cardiology (on archive.org), 31 January 2016 (archived) and President of the ESC Congress 1984 in Düsseldorf. 1986: Retirement 1988 to 1997: Medical activity in the cardiac catheter department at the St.Vincenz Hospital in Essen.
Academic work and merits Loogen is considered the doyen of clinical cardiology in Germany.Jennifer Taylor: Special Feature: Pioneer: Wolfgang Kübler, MD, FRCP, FACC, FESC, Circulation, 20 June 2010, f145-f149Günter Breithardt, L. Seipel: Laudatio anlässlich des 90. Geburtstages von Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h. c. Franz Loogen. Clin Res Cardiol 2009; 98: 341-3 Once his interest in heart disease was aroused - apparently by the endocarditis cases in the prisoner-of-war camp - and he was able to participate in invasive cardiological diagnostics with the cardiac catheter in Otto Bayer's group at the beginning of his residency, he devoted himself entirely to cardiology.H[einrich] Kreuzer: Laudatio. Z Kardiol 1979; 68: 289
His scientific work initially focused on acquired valvular heart defects and all congenital heart defects. Later, coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathies and electrotherapy (pacemakers) were added.
Loogen recognised early on that progress and the increase in knowledge no longer allowed cardiac medicine to be practised alongside general internal medicine. He therefore persistently campaigned for the independence of cardiology as an independent specialty in Germany, despite opposition from internists, who accused him of destroying the unity of internal medicine through this specialisation. Loogen himself described this as a "process of detachment with many tensions and frustrations". In the end, this even led to a break with his then clinic director Grosse-Brockhoff. Loogen, who nevertheless always saw cardiology in the context of internal medicine, experienced a late "reconciliatory" recognition when he was awarded honorary membership of the German Society for Internal Medicine in 1998.
Loogen established the first independent department of cardiology and collaborated early on with the (Düsseldorf) cardiac surgeons, especially Ernst Derra and Wolfgang Bircks. It was only after he was awarded the first cardiology chair with a clinical department in 1967 that "cardiology" became a fixed term in Germany and doctors practising cardiology were referred to as "cardiologists."Jennifer Taylor: Special Feature: History of the German Cardiac Society, Circulation, 4 January 2011, f1-f6
In addition, Loogen also successfully represented German cardiology at specialist congresses abroad in order to overcome the ostracism of Germany after the Second World War, to restore its professional recognition and to integrate it into the international cardiology community. As early as 1972, he was the first German to be elected to the board of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). In 1980, Loogen took office as ESC president (1980–84) at the European Congress of Cardiology. 16 years later, his student Günter Breithardt succeeded him in this post.Hans Blömer: When Cardiology became a separate matter, Eur J Med Res 2006; 11: 415-7
During his time as president of the ESC, Loogen also represented the interests of European countries on the board of the International Society and Federation of Cardiology (ISFC), which later became the World Heart Federation. With a sure instinct for world politics, he won the agreement of representatives of the then Eastern Bloc countries and in particular the Soviet Society of Cardiology - long before the fall of the Berlin Wall - to hold the XII World Congress of Cardiology, organised by the ISFC, in (West) Berlin in 1994. As he was keen to enable cardiologists from Eastern Bloc countries to participate, it was agreed that the Eastern Bloc cardiologists - due to a lack of foreign currency - could stay overnight in East Berlin and cross the border daily for the congress.Günter Breithardt, L. Seipel: Nachruf: Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h. c. Franz Loogen ist tot. Cardio News 2010; 13(9):18Günter Breithardt: Laudatio zum 85. Geburtstag; anläßlich eines Symposiums am 5. Juni 2004 in Benrath. Due to the changes in world politics in 1989, the XII. World Congress was then held together with the annual ESC Congress in 1994, when the Iron Curtain disappeared.