Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2004; 9: 263–4
Karl-Ludwig Resch studied medicine at the Universities of Cologne and Munich, Germany. He was a Research Fellow at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Universities of Munich, Germany and Vienna, Austria, from 1987 to 1993. In 1994 he received his PhD (‘Habilitation’) from the University of Vienna, and moved with Edzard Ernst to Exeter, UK, to become a Senior Lecturer in Complementary Medicine and to assist him in establishing Europe’s first Chair in Complementary Medicine. In 1996, he returned to Germany to become the director of Europe’s largest research institute on Natural Medicine and Spa Science, the Forschungsinstitut für Balneologie und Kurortwissenschaft Bad Elster (FBK), a branch of the Saxon Ministry of social affairs. In 1999 he received a professorship from the University of Dresden. He has published or co-authored over 300 publications in scientific medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the BMJ. With currently over 30 members of staff, his main activities include clinical research (predominantly in primary care), systematic reviews and health technology assessment, health services research and evaluation, quality management and quality assurance, conceptual consulting for and development of innovative settings for public bodies and private companies, and teaching and coaching. He coordinates the CAM lecture series at the university of Dresden, and is a sought-after speaker at conferences, seminars and panel discussions; he is frequently invited to appear on German TV health shows.
Q What part of your work gives you the most pleasure?
K-LR: Anything new, unexpected and surprising – and the challenge of finding a solution.
Q What stimulates your creativity?
K-LR: (a) A decent hot bath; (b) an imminent deadline.
Q What advice would you give to someone going into CAM?
K-LR: When you set out to make fine poems, make sure you have an ample supply of words and master the grammar: never rely on intuition, lacking the firm foundation of professional skills.
Q Which form of CAM would you refuse to use?
K-LR: (a) All those interventions that claim to produce ‘subtle effects over a lengthy period of time’ – real problems require substantial effects, and sooner rather than later. (b) All those that claim to ‘instantly wipe out every problem’ – the philosopher’s stone of healing has not yet been found and probably won’t ever be.
Q What does your mother-in-law think about you working in CAM?
K-LR: It could have been worse…
Q Who was your most influential teacher?
K-LR: What a question! Certainly none of my school teachers. I think it was my academic teacher and friend Edzard Ernst, who has the patience of a good gardener: he would give me ample space to develop creative ideas but also urge me at the right moment to move on. And, much more than teaching, I could always profit from his example.
Q What makes a good researcher?
K-LR: An open-minded and impartial scepticism, curiosity and lateral thinking, a great deal of stubbornness, a pinch of ambition, an inexhaustible fund of extra hours, profound methodological skills, indestructible optimism and integrity. And a caring and sympathetic, yet always critical husband/wife.
Q If you had not entered your current profession, what would you have liked to do?
K-LR: Play in a hard rock band. If I ever need to do this to make a living, I could start off with about a hundred of my own songs and lyrics.
Q What makes you happy?
K-LR: Sharing time with real friends (by far the best of which is certainly my wife).
Q Which do you believe is the most over-rated virtue?
K-LR: Virtues, sometimes referred to as the qualities of life, typically threaten quality of life, because they appear as dogmatic principles, saving people from acting in a personally responsible way that is appropriate to a given situation in real life. Thus virtues in general may be over-rated.
Q What is your favourite dream?
K-LR: Making the big draw in a lottery, waking up and keeping on doing what I am doing, just a bit more independent of financial constraints and worries.
Q Which is your favourite quote?
K-LR: Support of research is not necessarily a charitable act, it may well be a prudent investment.
Q If you were a car, what make would you be?
K-LR: Certainly a Land Rover: a bit old-fashioned, a bit slow, a bit inefficient, but more likely than any other car to get everywhere.
Q How would you like to be remembered?
K-LR: In ancient Roman times there was indeed nothing more important than to make oneself ‘immortal’. I am no Roman celebrity, however, and since ‘to be remembered’ implies to have gone, any ‘how’ wouldn’t make any notable difference for me – thus I really don’t care.
