Michael Lichtenberg, MD, FESC
Chief Medical Officer of the Angiology Department at the Vascular Center Clinic in Arnsberg Germany
I think about the potential efficiency gains coming in two different ways.
Here is how to think of the first way… Say I need this particular balloon. It’s not the Cath Lab where I am operating. We have 3 cath labs, so I send a technician to run off and find it in one of the other 2 Cath Labs. They try one, it’s not there, they try the 3rd, maybe it’s there and bring it to me. This can add up to real time wasted, minute by minute passing where I am just waiting.
The other way is to use the modularity idea to combine steps in a procedure normally done with two different catheters into one step. For example, maybe combining a focal high-pressure balloon with a long standard balloon into one catheter solution? Or maybe instead of exchanging out a wire to different sizes to fit the next catheter you just downsize the catheter tip to fit the wire already in place? With this modularity idea you can push new technologies and new ideas much more quickly.”
“My management, always ask me “Why can’t you do 2 or 3 more cases, a day?”. Yes, using this technology, this idea, maybe at the end of the day we could do one case more in each of our 3 Cath Labs.
Dr. Lichtenberg earned his medical degree from the Heinrich-Heine Medical University of Dusseldorf, and also studied at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana and the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, Texas.
As esteemed Interventional Angiologist with 20 years of experience in endovascular interventions, Dr. Lichtenberg was elected to serve as Managing Director of the German Society for Angiology in 2017. In 2019, he was elected to serve as the society’s President.
Dr. Lichtenberg’s areas of clinical interest include deep venous intervention, peripheral artery disease, peripheral thrombosis and atherosclerosis.
In addition to his day-to-day work in interventional care, his main interest is the evaluation of new devices, techniques and procedures for the intervention of peripheral artery disease. Dr. Lichtenberg has performed a series of studies in this area and conducted many clinical trials.