In Loving Memory of 'Prof. Hjorting-Hansen'
Prof. H.C. Erik Hjorting-Hansen
( 1933 – 2020 )
With great sadness IAOFR took notice of the passing of Prof. Hjorting-Hansen
on Dec. 21th, 2020. After education in Denmark, USA and Zurich (With Prof. Obwegeser)
Prof. Hjorting-Hansen was Professor at the Copenhagen Tandlægehøjskole from 1970
until 2002 and from 1975 until his retirement in 2002 Chairman of the Oral & Maxillofacial
Surgery Department at Rikshospitalet, University Hospital of Copenhagen.
From his friend and successor at Rikshospitalet, Prof. Søren Hillerup, I have heard
the following story from the very early days of IAOFR. Prof. Hjørting-Hansen had
supported him to take part in the 8th Int. Conf. on Oral Surgery in Berlin, June
1983. A whole day had been allocated to a consensus conference on preprosthetic
surgery with participation of OMF surgeons and prosthodontists from Europe and the
USA.
Due to internal flaws of communication and missing announcement of the consensus
conference, the panel outnumbered the audience and it was a shared feeling of the
panelists to replace frustration over the missing audience with publishing a book
(Stoelinga, PJW ed.: Proceedings Consensus Conference: The Relative Roles of Vestibuloplasty
and Ridge Augmentation in the Management of the Atrophic Mandible, Quintessence,
Berlin 1984). The chemistry between panel participants was, professionally and socially,
enjoyable and unforgettable. This he had reported back home and next time Hjørting-Hansen
personally wanted to participate.
So Hjorting became one of the founding members of the IRGRPS during the first International
Conference on Preprosthetic Surgery in Palm Springs in 1985. After a series of meetings,
1997 Prof. Hjørting-Hansen hosted in Copenhagen, Denmark, the 7th meeting in a beautiful
athmosphere. Those who had chance to attend will remember the personal concert by
the world famous Danish recorder player, Michala Petri, which Hjørting-Hansen could
arrange. For myself and many younger surgeons Prof. Hjørting-Hansen was a fatherly
friend, always suppporting us in his personal rersearch field of bone regeneration
and bone replacement materials. He had strongly influenced us surgeons of Kiel,
Germany, Prof. Härle and his pupils, to use gingival marginal instead of vestibular
incisions for cleft osteoplasty and later for preprosthetic bone augmentation. He
also formed a lasting friendship to the Danish colleagues in the next generation.
Erik, we will miss you.
- Hendrik Terheyden