Printer-friendly format

The opportunity to forge a new training ground for vascular surgeons had long been a dream for Dr. Michael Rohrer. The chance that it might come about in the one city where his wife also felt she could further her career in pediatric hematology seemed too good to be true.

But that's exactly how it played out for this New England family, who arrived in Memphis last fall from Worcester, Mass. Their relocation also fell at the time when their son, Christopher, packed up and headed off to the University of Vermont.

"Our son went off to college at the same time we had the chance to pursue these new opportunities," said Rohrer, who today serves as professor at the University of Tennessee (UT) Health Science Center and clinical chief of vascular and endovascular surgery for UT Medical Group Inc., the medical school's private-practice arm.

"It was a real confluence of good fortune and circumstance," he said of the appointment.

Rohrer was recruited by Surgery Department Chair Dr. Timothy Fabian as the medical school sought its first member in a new division of vascular and endovascular surgery. The program also includes UT Medical Group's new diagnostic vascular lab.

After 19 years in the Boston area, though, Rohrer's wife, Dr. Melody Cunningham, had warned him never to think of moving away from her job at Children's Hospital Boston. Unless, that is, it was to the only other city in America she'd consider moving: the home of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

She's since accepted a research and clinical role at St. Jude in the areas of bone-marrow failure, thalassemia and iron-overload. The match provided an open door for her husband to accept his dream position, too.

"What this position means is the opportunity to mold the program and send it in the direction I think is appropriate," Rohrer said, "which includes a strong endovascular presence and a good balance of operative surgery."

Striking that balance is at the heart of his mission in building the new program. That vision brings together the skills of both an interventional cardiologist and a traditional surgeon, focusing them on the sub-specialty of treating peripheral vascular disease.

The goal is equipping new surgeons with the range of skills they need to provide the most-effective care for patients with peripheral vascular problems. It's also to keep those problems from being treated as, well, peripheral in the practices of traditional surgeons.

"To place the open-surgical skills and the endovascular skills in the hands of the same practitioner creates a substantial value for patients," Rohrer said.

"One can look at a certain clinical problem and help treat it in the way that's best, which sometimes includes a combination of techniques in the same procedure."

At UT-Memphis, vascular surgery has historically been done by general surgeons and particularly in the trauma-surgery division, Rohrer said. But just as a specialized oncology surgeon can bring value to the treatment of a tumor, so can specialized periphery-vascular surgeons add the value of expertise in their specific field, he said.

For Rohrer, a native of northern California, this latest endeavor is the summit of a medical career he's been pursuing ever since his high-school days. After volunteering in emergency rooms and working in hospitals during his teenage years, he went eastward for an integrated undergraduate-medical degree program at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. He also completed his surgery internship and general surgery residency there.

Rohrer completed fellowships in vascular surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, and in endovascular surgery at Southern Illinois University in Springfield.

He spent the past 19 years in Worcester on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and is board-certified by the American Board of Surgery with additional qualifications in vascular surgery.

In Memphis, Rohrer also serves as chief of vascular surgery service and director of peripheral interventions in the cardiac catheterization lab at Methodist University Hospital. His expertise focuses on abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, thoracic aortic disease, angiography and intervention for peripheral vascular occlusive disease.

Taking on the job as the first member of UT's new vascular/endovascular surgery program has made for a challenging schedule, since there's no one else yet with whom to share on-call duties. In between his work at MUH and spending time with UT residents, he's also called on to cover some vascular cases at The Med.

"The trauma surgeons there are very skilled and experienced," he said. "The problems they ask me to help with are the most challenging ones."

To help share the load, he is already working with UT to recruit a second faculty member to his new program. The long-term goal: Building a national reputation for UT's vascular program.

"I'm very anxious that people would associate vascular-surgery excellence with the University of Tennessee Division of Vascular Surgery," Rohrer said.

"I want referring physicians to recognize our division as a place where they can send their most challenging cases — a place that's recognized for clinical innovation and excellence. I also want our patients to feel they have received great care."

Rohrer's professional memberships include the Society for Vascular Surgery; the American College of Surgeons and American Heart Association, as a fellow in both; the New England Society for Vascular Surgery; the Association for Academic Surgery; the American Venous Forum; the Council on Cardio-Thoracic and Vascular Surgery and the Thrombosis Council.

He has been honored with a surgical-faculty-member teaching award and with membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society. He has been designed a distinguished reviewer for the Journal of Vascular Surgery, and also serves on editorial boards and as a reviewer for several other surgical and medical journals.

He is the author or co-author of more than 120 medical and surgical grants, studies, presentations, book chapters, abstracts and articles.

Outside of the medical practice, he enjoys running and woodworking, having honed a skill for crafting Shaker-style furniture during his years in New England.


June 2007

Tags:

None