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Orthopedic community mourns the passing of Maurice E. Müller, MD
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A founder of the AO technique and heralded as the “Orthopedic Surgeon of the Century” by the Societé Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie (SICOT), Maurice E. Müller, MD, died in Bern, Switzerland. He was 91 years old.
“Maurice Müller was not only a superb surgeon but also a humanist who helped countless careers,” European Federation of National Associations of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (EFORT) President Karl-Göran Thorngren, MD, and EFORT Member-at-Large Pierre Hoffmeyer, MD, said in an EFORT news release. “The word ‘generosity’ characterizes him the best, and a budding surgeon in need was never turned away.”
Müller was born on March 28, 1918, in Biel, Switzerland. He earned his medical degree from the University of Lausanne in 1944 and served as a house officer at the Balgrist Hospital in Zurich.
He qualified as an orthopedic surgeon in 1956 and traveled to Zurich for a time as an itinerant surgeon.
In 1960, Müller became a chief surgeon in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and the following year, performed the first total hip procedure in the city. Soon after, he achieved the position of professor and chairman of the orthopedic service at the University of Bern and helped establish the Protek Foundation in the city.
Among his myriad accomplishments, Müller served as the president of the Swiss Society of Orthopaedics, the International Hip Society and SICOT.
In addition, he established the Maurice E. Müller Institute for Biomechanics in Bern, co-authored the now classic, Classification AO des fractures, and endowed Harvard University and McGill University with a chair in biomechanics.
In 2005, he opened the Paul Klee Museum in Bern, which features more than 4,000 pieces of Klee’s work.