The End of an Era. In Memoriam Hans Georg Borst (17.10.1927–8.9.2022)

“Y’know– this is incompatiblewithmy life expectancy” said Prof Borst and turned away from the dawdling lift, leading the team up five flights of stairs with his bad hip to continue with the day’s planning. Little did he know that fate had reserved almost a complete century for him, rendering one of his favorite expressions relatively void: “I’m perishing!” This did not become true until September 8, 2022–the day which also claimed Queen Elizabeth II. And if that was not coincidence enough, Hans Borst’s “Hands across the ocean”1 were shaken one last time with his long-time friend and fellow aortic surgeon Randall B Griepp also dying that very day in New York, aged 82, 12 years his junior. Apart from thewell-known and often repeated fact that he wasoneof the truepioneers andmost influential developersof cardiac surgery, Hans Borst will always be remembered for his charisma. He simply was charisma personified. Even my wife, who is not easily impressed with people, fell in awe the first timeshemethim.Whenheentereda room,everybodypresent got the feeling that nowsomethingwasabout tohappen, that a problem was about to be solved for good. He wasn’t a man of many words, but the ones he spoke were valid, even if disguised in subtle irony and often humor: “We are doing complex procedures all day long, only for some tired neurologist to take the money and buy himself a new EEG.” Patiencewas definitely not one of his strengths, in and out of theOR. And contradictionwas only accepted if it was really well-founded. Priceless the scene when the head of cardiology, Prof Paul Lichtlen, looked over the drapes during an emergency CABG following a botched early PTCA, suggesting in his Swiss idiom: “Hans, whilst you’re at it, just put one on that distal PLA also, will you?” Borst briefly looked up, gnarling: “Come on then, Paul! Scrub in!” The main secret of his success, both as a surgeon as well as a leader, was his ability to let others do what they could best. He would rather operate on a complicated acute type A dissection while in the other OR an expert and dedicated staff member would take care of the private coronary patient originally scheduled for that day. He did not particularly like that “doll’s stuff” anyway. This was also true for the surgery of congenital heart disease for which he had a deep respect. When it came down to the tiny ones, he was glad that he had sent colleagues to be trained at Great Ormond Street or Boston Children’s, whose abilities he officially admired in his typical, slightly sarcastic way: “Watch out that one day you won’t start operating on protoplasm.” Comments like this were often accompanied by a chuckle when he had made a particularly apt one. „I could have started an advertising agency instead. I always come up with these good slogans.” In this inimitably firm but in the end good-natured way he guided, led, and protected his department as a whole, wisely investing venture capital in his staff where it seemed promising. He knew bywhomhewould be paid backand he seldom erred. An early fan of Post-it notes, decades before emailswere invented, Borst immortalized his thoughts on countless examples. If you received one, you knew exactly what to do and Hans Georg Borst (17.10.1927–8.9.2022) (source: private, with permission).