Hans Erik Bøtker steps down as Vice-dean

Health will need a new Vice-dean for research after the summer break: Hans Erik Bøtker is stepping down from the post to spend more time with his family and on his own research ideas.

Dean Anne Mette Hvas makes no secret of the fact that she will miss him as a well-liked sparring partner and a skilled manager of the research area at the Faculty.

“Hans Erik is a fantastic colleague. He possesses an extremely high degree of professionalism and personal integrity. And at the same time, he’s a warm-hearted person who really sees people,” she says.

Young researchers call him a “knowledge bank” and praise him for always treating people kindly, no matter where they are located in the hierarchy.

But what does he actually feel about it himself, the man who has been responsible for the health research at Aarhus University for the past three years? What does he think, now that the time has come to take stock?

“The best thing about being Vice-dean is the possibility of reducing or removing some of the barriers you encountered on your way as a researcher. And I’ve been pleased with the really good working environment and the collaboration with talented people,” he says.

However, it has also come as a surprise to him to discover how hard it can be to create change in a large institution like Aarhus University.

“It's a bit like turning a supertanker. There are many traditions – practically conventions. The processes are long. When you need to change something, it is almost like a new situation has arisen by the time the decision is finally made,” he says.

Specialty took off

For more than 30 years, Hans Erik Bøtker has divided his time between treating patients and conducting research, and this gave him an advantage when, as Vice-dean, he had to build bridges between the two worlds.

He chose his future career as a medical doctor right from his first encounter with a hospital – when, as a secondary school student, he had his tonsils removed. During his medical studies he took shifts organised by FADL (the Association of Medical Students) at the Department of Cardiology in Aalborg, and the contrast fascinated him: Seeing how ill people were when they came into the department, and how well they felt when they went home.

Hans Erik Bøtker fell in love with cardiology, long before doctors at Aarhus Municipality Hospital constructed the first Danish balloon catheter for the heart in 1984. He saw how blood clot-dissolving medicine and the furious pace of technological development were sending the treatment options through the roof. The specialty took off, and Hans Erik Bøtker was there all the way.

For 19 years, he removed blood clots from several thousand hearts – a treatment that can still cause his eyes to light up when he talks about it:

“The patients are at death’s door when they arrive. We go in via the groin or the wrist, send some contrast liquid to the coronary artery, lead a guide wire in with a balloon that pulverises the blood clot in the heart, insert a stent that keeps the vessel open, and then the pain disappears. Some patients ask when they can be discharged almost before they are off the operating table. That’s an experience well worth getting up at 3:00 am for,” he says.

Concurrently, Hans Erik Bøtker’s research has taken up a lot of time since took his PhD in 1995. Amongst other things, it led him to a visiting professorship in Houston, USA, because he wanted to refine a method for measuring the uptake of sugar by the heart muscle during oxygen deprivation.

Hans Erik Bøtker is largely responsible for the fact that the Cardiology department at AUH has both good clinical facilities, where research is part of everyday life, and modern animal facilities in the basement and at Forum, which make it possible to test hypotheses drawn from patient treatment in animal studies. At the same time, as professor and chair he has had an eye on the possibilities of register-based studies and collaboration with the Department of Clinical Epidemiology, because it is important for both students and older researchers to know whether treatments or initiatives on a large scale have had an impact on society – whether they result in better survival rates or improved quality of life.

There are research ideas that he has still not completely let go of. He remains fascinated by the potential of projects in which a cuff is used to create a temporary oxygen deficiency in a tissue, such as an arm or thigh, in order to activate the body’s built-in defence system and ultimately help the body to protect its organs. These are the kinds of projects that he will now have time to look at.

A chance to try something new

Dean Anne-Mette Hvas is in no doubt that his great passion for both research and treatment is one of the reasons why, as Vice-dean, Hans Erik Bøtker has succeeded in bringing the university and the hospitals closer together.

“He’s a research man through and through, and this is also one of the reasons why he’s done such excellent work in the three years that he’s been Vice-dean for the area,” she says.

In his position, Hans Erik Bøtker has, amongst other things, taken up the challenges of GDPR in relation to research, as well as on-boarding and off-boarding combined with data security.

“He has the rare ability to get people to meet and make things happen – including the less popular initiatives that may sometimes be necessary. Competence is the most important thing, but in addition to this you can always feel the man Hans Erik beneath it, and this is a great strength when difficult situations need to be resolved,” explains Anne-Mette Hvas.

Hans Erik Bøtker had not thought of applying for the position of Vice-dean until he was contacted by a recruitment agency in the spring of 2020, but he felt that if he was ever going to try something completely different in his life, this was his chance. On the other hand, the decision to resign when he turns 67 this summer is all his own. Everyday life needs a slower pace, and he intends to prioritise the interests that he is most passionate about.

And it will be another chance to try something completely new – namely, spending time with his family. His wife Dorte and their three sons are used to visiting guinea pigs at Påskehøjgård at weekends and on weekday evenings, tagging along on journeys and research stays, and having a father who came home late.

Dorte Bøtker has been with her husband since they were both 17, and she still remembers when she was walking with her eldest son in a pram, and Hans Erik Bøtker was feeling annoyed about a new collective agreement which meant that doctors would have to take time off in lieu of overtime. Because how could he now become as good as he would like to be?

That’s why it’s not realistic to expect that he will stop working from one day to the next. He has a PhD student that he needs to guide to the goal, and he has research projects that he would like to delve into.

But now Hans Erik Bøtker will also have time to cultivate the hobbies he has neglected , and take care of things in the house in Egå and in the family’s summer house at Tipperne by Ringkøbing Fjord. He wants to go fishing with a rod, and travel without an agenda. He wants to dust off the model railway that is covered by a white sheet, leaning against the wall of his office at home, and play his electric guitar. Perhaps he will build a new terrace with the Milwaukee tools he was given by his colleagues when he left the cardiology department.

Perhaps he will also do voluntary work, he says.

“He’s already done that with all the extra hours he’s put into his work,” says his wife Dorte with a twinkle in her eye.

He is looking forward to it, in an ambivalent way.

“The work has filled my life and has been a big part of my identity – that’s just how it is. I’ll still take a bit of that identity with me, but now I’ll also have to find a new one.”

Facts

• Hans Erik Bøtker has been Vice-dean of Research at Health since August 2020.
• He came from a position as consultant at Aarhus University Hospital, Cardiology (from 2002) and clinical professor and chair of the Department of Clinical Medicine (from 2007).
• He became a medical doctor in 1983, PhD in 1995, medical specialist in heart disease & internal medicine in 1999, and DMSc in 2001.
• In the course of his research career, he has for example contributed to the discovery of cuff therapy for blood pressure treatment, the development of a method to measure the uptake of sugar by the heart muscle during oxygen deprivation, and the discovery that various medications for diabetes patients not only control the metabolic disease, but also protect the heart. He has also improved the treatment of spasms in the coronary arteries and diseases of the small blood vessels by establishing algorithms that can reveal angina.
• The awards he has received include the Danish Society of Cardiology’s Honorary Prize (2020), the Hagedorn Prize (2019), the Marie and August Krogh Prize (2018), the Odd Fellow Order’s Research Award (2012) and the Danish Society of Cardiology’s Research Award (2005), and he has acted as supervisor for more than 40 PhD students.
• He is married to Dorte Bøtker, who has retired after a long career as a nurse. Together, they have three sons and four grandchildren aged 17, 14, 9 and 6.
• Hans Erik Bøtker will be 67 in July 2023. He is officially stepping down as Vice-dean on 1 August.
• The job advertisement will be published on 27 February, and there will be interviews in May. A new Vice-dean is expected to take up the post from 1 September. 

Contact

Vice-dean Hans Erik Bøtker
Aarhus University, Health
boetker@au.dk
Tel.: +45 4029 3389

Dean Anne-Mette Hvas
Aarhus University, Health
dean.health@au.dk
Tel.: +45 8715 2007