Benedict Kjærgaard and AAU: A story of collaboration and progress
: 10.03.2025
Benedict Kjærgaard has played a central role in the development of Aalborg University's medical programme and been involved in groundbreaking medical inventions. His work on the mobile heart-lung machine has saved numerous lives and highlights the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration at AAU.
By Lea Laursen Pasgaard, AAU Communication and Public Affairs
Photo: Air Force Photo Service. Graphic: Søren Emil Søe Degn
In many ways, it was a coincidence that Benedict Kjærgaard ended up at Aalborg University. In the 90s, he got a job at Aalborg Hospital and worked with the University Hospital in Aarhus until Aalborg University got its own medical programme in 2010. Since then, he has taught classes in all year groups of the popular programme in Aalborg, which according to Benedict Kjærgaard has made a big difference to the shortage of doctors in Northern Denmark.
"I am very pleased that we have created a quality medical programme that the students are happy with. We have tried to make it more problem-based than classic medical programmes, and there is probably also more group work. That can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing if there are some students who sit back and 'hide'," says Benedict Kjærgaard.
"I was apprehensive about it at the time. I feared it wouldn't go all that well. Of course, there are a few students who drop out every now and then, but overall I think we’ve hit a good level," he adds.
Benedict Kjærgaard is a clinical professor at Aalborg University, and he is one of the prominent AAU figures interviewed by AAU Update about their relationship with the university in connection with the 50th anniversary last year.
Benedict Kjærgaard has – by his own estimation – a somewhat more mixed position than most clinical professors. Formally, he is employed 20 percent of his time as a consultant in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at Aalborg University Hospital. He spends the other 80 percent teaching medical students, among other things, in the elective course "Læge i forsvaret [Military Doctor]" and, not least, on research using laboratory animals.
He is the head of the Biomedical Research Laboratory which is a partnership of AAU and Aalborg University Hospital. Thus, he is the one who decides who has access to the laboratory's pigs, rabbits, rats and mice for research experiments. And the one who is responsible for ensuring that AAU's clinical trials comply with current rules.
As a cardiopulmonary surgeon, Benedict Kjærgaard has worked with animal experiments for many years. Among other things, in the development of a mobile heart-lung machine that he got the idea for in the 1990s. It has revived numerous severely hypothermic people with cardiac arrest – including a group of boarding school students who capsized in a dragon boat in Præstø Fjord in 2011.
"The person I treated at the time, the other doctors had pronounced dead. He has become an engineer and, as far as I can understand from his mother, is doing well to this day. She still sends me Christmas cards," says Benedict Kjærgaard.
The idea for the mobile heart-lung machine arose while he was serving on Air Force rescue helicopters for more than 30 years. Along with the Air Force, he and Aalborg University Hospital established an emergency team in 2004 that can fly out with the heart-lung machine and help in emergency situations.
Developing new, exciting methods and technologies that can make a difference saves lives. This is what Benedict Kjærgaard finds most exciting about his work. Standard operations, on the other hand, don't mean much to him.
"I'm probably not very good at them either. Those who do them every day get very skilled. I could probably do heart surgery, but I'm not going to do that today. Only if I need to help in an emergency situation, for example," he explains.
As head of the Biomedical Research Laboratory, Benedict Kjærgaard is in contact with many different types of researchers from the university. He thrives in the interdisciplinary collaboration that is one of AAU's distinctive features.
Right now, for example, he is working with cardiologists at the university hospital and researchers at the Department of Energy Technology who are developing a special mini-generator that can supply life-long power to pacemakers (in Danish). This could mean that patients do not have to change the batteries in a pacemaker every year, as is the case now, and it may also provide better opportunities to place pacemakers in the most optimal places in a diseased heart. So far, it is being developed through experiments in anesthetized pigs.
"No one can invent something like this on their own. You may get an idea – as I did with the heart-lung machine back then – but if we want to get into the important details, it’s not good to have five heart surgeons doing research together. They will typically have the same ideas. It’s much better to collaborate across disciplinary expertise," says Benedict Kjærgaard.
"We are much bigger together," he states.
When asked directly about his wishes for AAU's future, Benedict Kjærgaard replies that he hopes that AAU can remain a leader in the areas that the university chooses to focus on.
"I think it's best to invest in being beacons in certain areas. Above all, I hope that AAU will also be known for high quality in the future," it says.
Subject: AAU 50 Years
Aalborg University turned 50 last year, and AAU Update has spoken to a number of AAU personalities about their relationship with the university and their wishes for the future.
Find the other portraits here:
Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs