Dr Snake - getting to know biologist Ulrich Kuch
In his book "Fragebogen" (Questionnaire), the author Max Frisch set out 21 of them. We think 11 questions are just as good. Here, hospital partners answer them personally.
Dr. Ulrich Kuch is head of the Department of Tropical Medicine and Global Health at the Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine at Goethe University Frankfurt. Even as a child, he kept unusual species of fish; then, at twelve, he began to study snake venoms. Kuch is involved in several funded hospital partnerships: with three university hospitals in Bangladesh and the Hospital Básico San Juan de Taisha in Ecuador but also in Nepal and Myanmar. After a long pause due to Covid19, he is currently working in Bangladesh in his projects.
Hello, Mr. Kuch!
Hello, dear hospital partnership team!
1. The best thing about 2021 for me so far has been, ... that the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines proved to be successful and their production and distribution are progressing further.
2. What I recently learned new: That the United Nations need to be reformed much more urgently than I ever suspected.
3. The most touching situation in my project was … to see our partners suffer after they fought for the lives of their young colleagues who died of COVID-19.
4. This miracle has happened to me in my life: The wonder of birth – ultimately in any organism.
5) The most important book for me is: Spontaneously, I would have said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, although, strictly they cannot be considered a book. As a child I was quite impressed by the masterpieces by George Orwell and the Annual Reports by Amnesty International.
6. This gives me strength in life: My family, friends, and nature.
7. When I have a free evening, then I... I meet up with friends.
8. On this occasion, I was really upset: When the Dutch blue-helmet soldiers in the so-called “UN protection zone” in Srebrenica turned the people that they were entrusted with into the hands of their murderers without a fight.
9. What I have learned in my project is: The importance to frequently update financial and activity planning and the ability to adapt to the quickly changing local circumstance, especially when working in fragile contexts.
10. What I appreciate most about the existing partnership is that... during our bilateral research cooperation we learned together how to reach long-term goals step by step, despite difficult contexts and resistance, and that we can build on this joint experience with our hospital partners.
11. This is how good friends describe me: optimistic, considerate, target-oriented.
Last but not least:
We talk a lot about the Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030. However, we are now starting to realize how far the pandemic threw us back in our progress of reaching them. The devastating impact of underrecognized tropical disease and snake-bite venoming working as “the quiet death” in the background, as well as the acute and chronic political conflicts in many parts of the world, are too often lost out of sights. Germany could and must become more active in these areas of work.