Christian-Friedrich Vahl

Christian-Friedrich Vahl is a German cardiac surgeon, born in 1955 in Zeven. He studied medicine, art history, philosophy and sociology, completing his medical studies between 1975 and 1981 at the universities of Göttingen and Heidelberg, with an academic year abroad at the University of Madrid, and he took his medical doctorate in 1986. His training included periods at the Deutsches Herzzentrum München and the Augsburg hospital, and he took part in a project on quality assurance in cardiac surgery. He moved to the University of Heidelberg in 1988, habilitated there in 1995 and was appointed associate professor in 2002. Since 2004 he has directed the Clinic for Heart, Thorax and Vascular Surgery at the University of Mainz. He has chaired the German Society for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, sits on the board of the German Society of Surgery, and is the author of more than 400 scientific publications.