Rotary4Hauner has been supporting the Neue Hauner, the future pediatric and adolescent clinic on the Großhadern campus, since 2013. From 2030, the Clinics for Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery of the Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital will provide care for patients there with their departments and outpatient clinics. Almost 200 beds will be available for inpatient care. In addition to medical equipment, such a facility, in which the interaction between parents and children and the medical and nursing staff plays a central role, also needs facilities that offer children and young people space and opportunities to retreat.

There is already a great deal of social commitment to this. Right at the forefront: the Rotary Clubs from Munich and the surrounding area. Dr. Nicola Pape-Feußner from RC München-Münchner Freiheit worked at "Hauner" for eleven years and is now a practising doctor. "We have already collected 500,000 euros since the start of our initiative. And we also raised another 10,000 euros at the Pack ma's evening." A spontaneous auction initiated by Prof. Markus Lerch also contributed to this. Sandro Wagner, sponsor of the New Hauner, had brought along a DFB jersey with the signatures of all the current national team players as a gift. Prof. Karl-Walter Jauch, former Medical Director of the LMU Hospital and member of the Rotary Club Munich, bought it at auction for 1,500 euros. His commitment was a matter close to his heart, the jersey will go to "my grandson", he said enthusiastically afterwards.

A pioneer in transplantation medicine is Prof. Eckhard Wolf, spokesman for the Xenotransplantation Collaborative Research Center. Together with the heart surgeons at the LMU Clinic led by Prof. Bruno Reichart and Prof. Christian Hagl, current head of the clinic, the researchers are working on a pig heart that can be implanted into a human recipient without an immunological rejection reaction and free of potentially harmful retroviruses. Prof. Wolf: "We are now so far along with our donor pigs that we want to start a clinical pilot study and a small group of patients from 2027," said the veterinarian and geneticist Wolf, adding "If this succeeds, then the term V.I.P. may take on a whole new meaning: Very Important Pigs."

The importance of such progress is impressively demonstrated by Romina's story. The now 12-year-old received a new heart at the LMU Klinikum Großhadern - she donated two of her own heart valves herself and thus helped others. Previously, she had to wait a year and a half in the pediatric intensive care unit in Großhadern with a heart bridging system, a so-called Berlin Heart, for a new organ. During this time, for example, she lacked a "workroom where she could do her homework in peace or a wall to climb," said the student. This is exactly what donations such as those from Rotary4Hauner are needed for. Equipment that helps the children and their families to create a positive atmosphere in which the patients can cope with everyday life and get well, even during their often long stays in hospital.

Another pioneer is PD Dr. Sarah Kim-Hellmuth from the Children's Clinic at Dr. von Hauner Children's Hospital. She specializes in rare diseases, of which there are around 8,000. A rare disease exists when no more than five people in 10,000 are affected. In many cases, several genetic factors combined with environmental factors cause serious diseases. "In order to better understand these and then be able to help patients, we use what is known as multi-omics analysis," explained Kim-Hellmuth. This refers to proteins (proteome), metabolic products (metabolome), the genome, i.e. the genetic material DNA, and the respective transcripts of the genes (transcriptome).

The most controversial topic was presented by Prof. Wolfgang Böcker, Director of Trauma Surgery and the Musculoskeletal University Center Munich (MUM) at the LMU Hospital: "Artificial intelligence in medical consultations", for example when obtaining a second opinion on knee endoprostheses. The idea: instead of another visit to a doctor's surgery or clinic, the start-up DocRobin offers advice via artificial intelligence in collaboration with experts. There were still a few technical difficulties during the live presentation, but the avatar's medical expertise was well-founded.

However, Dr. Marianne Koch, a doctor, medical journalist and former actress, was somewhat sceptical about this. She said that with digital medicine, she missed the exchange between doctor and patient and the associated personal relationship, which could also have a healing effect.

Prof. Natalie Albert also needs a lot of technology. The nuclear medicine specialist showed how she tracks down cancer in the body. "I can basically go on a search like a detective and go through all the organs in the body layer by layer to understand what's going on. All I need is sugar cubes, a pinch of uranium and a good camera," she explained to the audience.

All in all, the almost three hours provided plenty of material for discussion, which led to lively conversations afterwards at a reception with a flying buffet. The Rotary4Hauner community was certainly enthusiastic, as the two presidents of Rotary München-Münchner Freiheit, Christian von der Linde, and Rotary München-Blutenburg, Barbara Denfeld, emphasized at the end.