LAUSR

It is both a pleasure and an honor to write about my dear friend Alexander Berghaus. I have known Dr. Berghaus all through his tenure as Professor and Director of the Department of Otolaryngology at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) of Munich, which started in 2003. As a scientist, Dr. Berghaus has authored hundreds of valuable scientific articles and book chapters. Early in his career, he expressed a special interest in the field of facial plastic surgery, as shown in his publications that included using polyethylene in microtia reconstruction and platinum chain implants for lid loading in cases of facial palsy instead of the classic gold implants. He gradually developed an intense interest in the nose, becoming the leading force in his practice where he focused his studies on the anatomy, physiology, and esthetics of the nose. He also designedmany new rhinoplasty instruments. Dr. Berghaus has been a strong believer that facial plastic surgery should always be an integral part of the otolaryngology specialty. It was through his relentless efforts that the Otolaryngology Department at LMU became one of the leading departments in Germany to provide comprehensive training in facial plastic surgery to all its residents and fellows. In his endeavor to promote the specialtyof facialplastic surgery inGermany, Dr. Berghaus organized an annual international facial plastic surgery meeting to which he invited world leaders in the field to perform live surgical demonstrationsofmost facialplasticproceduresand to train the participants on the different surgical techniques during the cadaver dissection sessions. I have been honored to be on the faculty of these meetings, for over 10 years in a row, during which I was impressed by the remarkable dedication that Dr. Berghaus showed for teaching but I was even more impressed by his continuous passion to learn and to modify his own surgical techniques. Despite decades of success using the endonasal approach, he did not mind shifting gradually to the external rhinoplasty approach, simply because Alex was too muchof a thinker to accept traditionover scientific reality. Sharing the same infatuation with the nose made Alex and myself team up and collaborate in a huge number of teaching courses all over the world, from Seattle to Dubai and from Antwerp to Riyadh. During these travels we had a lot of cherished and unforgettable memories. On one occasion we were together in Saudi Arabia and after finishing a course in Riyadh we returned exhausted to our hotel where Alex suddenly pulled out a book from his bag — a big tourist guide — and opened to a page that he had already marked saying: “We can’t leave Riyadh without visiting this museum,” which was located in the ancient