TCT Honors Bernhard Meier with the Hartzler Master Clinical Operator Award

San Francisco, CA—CRF has chosen Bernhard Meier, MD, professor and chairman of cardiology at University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland, as the 2013 recipient of the fifth annual Geoffrey O. Hartzler Master Clinical Operator Award. The honor recognizes Meier’s pioneering work in interventional cardiology and his possession of the many great qualities that Hartzler felt essential to the makeup of a great physician.

The Master Clinical Operator Award is given annually at TCT to an interventional operator who has distinguished him or herself as an innovator in the field.

In his own words, Meier has devoted his career to the vision of his mentor Andreas Gruentzig, MD, keeping PCI as simple as possible while improving its potential, efficacy and safety.

“To win the Hartzler Master Operator Award at TCT is a great honor in more than one respect,” Meier told TCT Daily. “First, Dr. Hartzler was a masterful operator. He was a role model for all interventional cardiologists in terms of his dexterity and quick grasp of complex situations.

“Second,” he continued, “TCT is the world’s most important meeting in interventional cardiology and being singled out for an award by this organization is a true highlight in any career of an interventional cardiologist.”

Meier: An unparalleled interventionalist

TCT course director Gregg W. Stone, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center, in New York, said that there could be no more deserving person to be acknowledged with this year’s award. “Dr. Meier is a superb coronary and structural heart disease interventionalist, with unparalleled skills in the cath lab,” he commented.

“Dr. Meier was present with Dr. Gruentzig during the birth of angioplasty as one of his first fellows,” Stone said. “Not only did Dr. Meier participate in the first and subsequent percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty procedures, he channeled the inspiration he drew from Andreas to become a powerful force and unique voice in the annals of interventional cardiology.”

Meier said that he views himself as more of a facilitator than an innovator in the field. His career goals have always been to keep interventional procedures simple to learn, highly expeditious and affordable.

“I have been able to insert small modifications, concepts or improvements of equipment to a variety of interventional procedures such as PCI, valve treatment shunt closure and diagnostic angiography,” Meier said.

During his career, Meier has been responsible for a variety of inventions that were designed to overcome the limitations of early equipment. He was involved in the creation of the Magnum wire, a stiff-shaft, blunt-tip wire used for recanalization during angioplasty. He also helped create specialty balloons such as the Trefoil, which had three identical 2-cm to 4-cm angioplasty balloons mounted in parallel on a single catheter to avoid complete interruption of blood flow during valvuloplasty.

In addition to devices, Meier helped develop many new techniques related to percutaneous closure of PFOs and the left atrial appendage, intracoronary ECG and coronary and left ventricle emergency pacing. Finally, Meier’s work and research have even shaped the vocabulary of interventional cardiology today.

Stone said that Meier has also served in many ways as “the conscience of interventional cardiology,” questioning the need for more complex devices and drugs. “His drive for simplicity is refreshing and grounded in his core belief that technology must always come second to the needs of the patient,” he noted.