The two things that become immediately apparent when following one of Prof. Remie’s courses on experimental microsurgery is his quiet passion for the best possible quality of work and his constant insistence on ”goal orientation”. Later, the participant realizes that this gentle perfectionism roots in a wide-ranging knowledge of anatomy, practical experiences with various animal models, comparative physiology, and anaesthesiology. His teaching can be described as ”interactive ex-cathedra” with an engaging presentational style and seamless transitions between slide-based information and practical, CCTV-based demo’s. Despite the more traditional format, it is complemented with a genuine empathy not only for his students but also for the experimental animals, the former combined with shrewd psychological insights.
We were all encouraged to submit, in advance, our different areas of interest and the themes we wanted to figure prominently in the course. This made for widely different subjects of teaching. Prof. Remie’s teaching is nevertheless so accomplished that he manages to interact individually with each student in different ways to expose him/her to the toughest possible challenge whilst, at the same time, pushing for the best possible response. This in itself is an accomplishment of the first order, made even more remarkable by the fact that the class I attended had extremely different starting competencies. The gems of theoretical and practical knowledge that he freely shares with you never feel pedantic but the relevant facts are mentioned at the appropriate moments in a way that you’d wished you should have known this all along. ”Forschung und Lehre”, said that giant of pre-Darwinian science, Alexander, Freiherr von Humboldt. The ”Lehre” is without question already in an elite league of its own; the ”Forschung”, one discovers later, are his own extremely interesting and important contributions to lab animal science in particular and operative methods in general. In short, the most advantageous combination of competencies, a Humboldtian teacher-scientist.
