Jochen W. Erhard, M.D. is the head of the department of general and vascular surgery at a teaching hospital of the University of Düsseldorf in Dinslaken/Germany. Erhard began his medical career at the Universities of Cologne, Hamburg, and Essen/Germany. His first internship in surgery was at the University Clinic of Essen, where he became an assistant to the department of surgery in 1979, then a senior registrar in 1986 as well as a consultant and faculty member in 1988. Starting in 1986, Erhard performed residencies at the University Clinic in Madison, WI, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, U.K., as well as Addenbrooke`s Hospital in Cambridge, U.K.

Erhard performed scientific work in the field of organ preservation together with groups of the University of Göttingen from 1989 until 1994. His memberships and scientific activities include the Organ-Allocation Committee of Eurotransplant, official speaker of the German Liver Transplantation Programs, Board Member of the German Foundation of Organ Transplantation (DSO), Board Member of the German Transplantation Society, guest lecturer and faculty-member at the Universidad Miguel Hernandez in Spain and a member of the "Task Force Blood" for the Federal Ministry of Health in Germany. Erhard has also won the Köhler Award of the German Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

Erhard's clinical and scientific activities include: oncological and vascular surgery; liver surgery and liver transplantation; intensive care in surgery; and alternatives in blood transfusion in surgery and intensive care medicine.