I was born in 1958. My father was an officer in the French army and my mother took care of the family at home. I have Alsatian roots on my mother’s side, who comes from a wine-making family, where my close relatives are still very successful nowadays (Paul Blanck in Kientzheim and Albert Mann in Wettolsheim).

After attending high school in Thann, I went to Besançon for the first two years of med faculty and then joined Strasbourg University till graduation. I got married at the age of 21 and have four sons that live and work abroad.

After being appointed as intern for hospitals of Alsace in 1981, I carried out five surgical internships. Two of them took place at Colmar Hospital, in the general surgery department run by Pr. Philippe Reys, and one at Haguenau Hospital in the gynecology and obstetrics department. This gave me enough experience to move to Central African Republic for 18 months, as part of a cooperation project, where I practiced as a general surgeon in the regional hospital of Berberati from 1983 to 1985.

When I returned to France, I started residential school at the university hospital of Strasbourg, aiming at specializing in gynecological surgery and doing two years of gynecology. Later on, I transferred to the general, digestive and endocrine surgery department of Pr. Daniel Jaeck in which I gained experience in general surgery and achieved a high-level training concerning the basics of breast surgery, as an intern and a clinical director from 1987 to 1993.

While undertaking the university course on breast diseases, I assisted in 1988 to a lecture given by Pr. Madeleine Lejour from Bruxelles, regarding breast reconstruction. This marks the threshold of a new orientation in my career. I was fascinated by this surgery and went on to learn it during an internship in Pr. Lejour’s department. I began to apply plastic surgery techniques to breast diseases and developed breast reconstruction as of 1989 at the university hospital of Strasbourg (right at the start of immediate reconstruction with prosthesis and secondary reconstruction with TRAM flap). In 1993, I joined Dr. Hubert Calderoli at the Clinique de l’Orangerie to develop a high level facility in breast surgery.

In 2009, jointly with the arrival of Dr. Philippe Liegeois, a gynecologist surgeon specialized in senology, I initiated the creation of the Institut du Sein de l’Orangerie. This institute is aiming at enabling better care for our patients treated for breast cancer, through a multidisciplinary team. In 2010, the institute started a partnership with the senology department of the Sirio-Libanes Hospital from Sao Paulo, the most respected department in South America when it comes to breast cancer. This lead to international recognition for the institute that became in 2013 the first French structure accredited by the Société Internationale de Sénologie (SIS).

In 2012, along with Dr. Liegeois we created a surgical association within the institute, the “Strasbourg Breast Center”, aiming at international development. Our team was strengthened in 2014 with the incomings of doctors Delphine Weitbruch and Christophe Ho Quoc. Dr. Weitbruch, a gynecologist surgeon, is a former specialist within cancer centers. Dr. Ho Quoc is a plastic surgeon, internationally known in the field of lipofilling (fat transfer) in breast surgery (plastic and breast reconstruction).