Andreas Steiner (doctor)

Andreas Konrad Steiner (born January 29, 1937 in Zurich ) is a Swiss doctor, surgeon, development worker, writer and philosopher.

Life

education

Steiner attended a primary school in Zollikon and the Realgymnasium in Zurich. After graduating from high school in 1955, he studied medicine at the universities of Geneva, Hamburg, Paris and Zurich. He received a federal doctor's diploma in Zurich on December 4, 1961. After the state examination, he trained as an FMH surgeon first at the Buffalo General Hospital, Buffalo NY USA, then at the Surgical University Clinic in Basel. After receiving the FMH for surgery, Steiner worked for three and a half years as a senior surgeon at the Männedorf District Hospital in the canton of Zurich .

Worked as a doctor in Africa and South America

Steiner wanted to work as a doctor in the third world from an early age. In 1964 he worked for the Red Cross in Yemen and then spent two years in the USA. After training and extensive practical experience in surgery, he came to the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné in 1976 via Medicus Mundi Switzerland . As chief physician, he systematically trained African auxiliary nursing staff there. He initiated a research laboratory for tropical diseases. In cooperation with the Tropical Institute in Hamburg, the first works and publications (on schistosomiasis ) were created under Steiner .

In 1980 Steiner left the Albert Schweitzer Hospital and took over the management of a basic health project in Alto Chicama, east of the city of Trujillo in Peru. The Coina hospital was at 2000 m above sea level. M. Steiner re-equipped it and put it back into operation. At the beginning of 1984, all foreigners had to withdraw from the Andes Valley, as the Maoist terrorist organization Shining Path began there and also threatened the foreigners in the health project of the Coina Hospital.

In September 1984, an American organization entrusted Steiner with the management of an integrated basic health project in Manono in the northern Katanga of Zaire. The area on which Steiner was responsible for the health care of the population was around 40,000 km², about the size of Switzerland. A former colonial hospital was revived, two more hospitals were built and put into operation under Steiner's direction. Health stations ( centers de santé rurale ) were set up in 14 larger villages, and a nurses' midwifery school was opened in the main town of Manono. Vegetable gardens were laid out with the mothers in the villages to improve child nutrition. Spring taps and wells were built. 300 Zairians worked on the project for which Steiner was responsible, including four doctors who Steiner trained in hospital administration and surgery.

In 1991 Steiner left the Manono project to the Africans and devoted himself to other projects in Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya and Angola. He then worked from 1992 to 1995 as Associate Professor and from 1995 as Head of Surgery at the Gonder College of Medical Sciences , which was then part of the University of Addis Ababa , Ethiopia. Here he dealt mainly with surgical problems; at the same time he held lectures for the medical students and trained them practically.

Return to Switzerland

In 1994 Steiner sent his family to Switzerland because the younger children from the second marriage now had to attend better schools than there were in Ethiopia, where Amharic was taught. In March 1995 Steiner also relocated to Switzerland. In 1995/96 he did short assignments as an expert in Angola, Rwanda, Senegal, Mauritania and Zaire.

Study of the humanities

Steiner then devoted himself to the humanities, which he had been interested in since high school. From 1997 to 2003 he studied philosophy and modern German literature at the University of Zurich . Graduated as lic.phil. In June 2003, which today corresponds to a Master of Philosophy.

Publications

• Tales from the bush. Meetings of a doctor in Africa. Bäbler Verlag, Bern, 1993. ISBN 3-905128-06-3
• We in Africa, three plays. Focus Verlag, Giessen, 1997. ISBN 3-88349-461-5
• Africa and Us: On Our Intervention in Africa. Balance after fifteen years as a doctor in Africa. Focus Verlag, Giessen, 1996. ISBN 3-88349-439-9
• Flammenzeichen , Fouqué Verlag, Frankfurt / M., 2000. ISBN 3-8267-4880-8
• Life, our greatest good. Albert Schweitzer's Ethics in the 21st Century . Herder Verlag, Freiburg i. Br. 2006. ISBN 978-3-451-23070-7
• Transcendent Reality . Karl Alber Verlag (Herder), Freiburg i.Br. 2010. ISBN 978-3-495-48398-5
• Departure into a multidimensional way of thinking. A sociopolitical polemic. , Herder Verlag Freiburg i.Br. 2014. ISBN 978-3-451-33290-6
• The great state treaty around Nathalie. Roman , Karin Fischer Verlag, Aachen 2014. ISBN 978-3-8422-4276-0
• All kinds of verses from half a century. Poems. Deutscher-Lyrik-Verlag, Aachen, 2014. ISBN 978-3-8422-4329-3

literature

• Andreas Mettenleiter : Testimonials, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements III (I – Z). In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 22, 2003, pp. 269-305, here: p. 294.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Radio DRS1 - Rendez-vous at noon: Interview currently in Africa.
2. ↑ Bulletin Medicus Mundi 62/1996. P. 25. "Results after fifteen years as a doctor in Africa". by Andreas Wirz
3. ↑ Karlheinz Büsch man a gift of God. The hospital of Dr. Steiner in the Andendorf Coina in Die Zeit No. 11, March 11, 1983, p. 64
4. ↑ Thomas Bacher, From bush doctor to students. At the age of 64, the former Third World doctor Andreas Steiner studies philosophy and literature in Zurich Oberland on May 5, 2001

Web links

• Homepage
• Literature by and about Andreas Steiner in the catalog of the German National Library