A Career in Reference Publishing and now in Teaching

Peter Reuter

Driving down to Stuttgart, Germany, in April 1989 for my first meeting with a medical publisher I did not expected to open the door to a new, exciting, successful and rewarding career in reference publishing. All I was hoping for was a chance to present my ideas and - maybe - being asked to contribute to a project or two. However, things turned out differently and over the next twenty years I published or contributed to more than 100 dictionary projects, among them more than 60 books in 6 languages and 19 countries. By now the market for medical information is truly global and changes at its fastest pace ever, especially in e-publishing. These changes create a whole new range of possibilities and challenges, which I am really excited about.

And there is now a new love and passion in my life – teaching anatomy & physiology to students in the health professions. After teaching as an adjunct professor at two colleges I am an assistant professor at the College of Health Professions at Florida Gulf Coast University [FGCU]. Being in charge of more than 400 students and five adjunct instructors is one of the more challenging experiences, yet, also one of the most satisfying things I have ever done. After all, we can only grow if we challenge ourselves. You can follow that adventure here.

But, there's even more to my life than working and teaching - The Ladybug Project, a charitable organization founded by my daughter Kim two years ago. We started small but have made incredible progress and are now active in three African countries - Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Madagascar.

So far we've sent more than 1500 pounds of school and health supplies to Africa. We have 250 volunteers from 7 countries on 4 continents helping us making a difference. More than 2,000 lives of people in Africa have been touched by our efforts. And that was only the beginning of what we will achieve.

 Ladybug

 

 

German Dictionaries

My first German medical dictionary was Springer Wörterbuch Medizin. It was published in 2001 and contained some 45,000 entries with synonyms and definitions. As it was quite successful a second edition with more than 3,000 additional entries plus an appendix containing information on medicinal herbs and plants was released in 2005. more...

 

 

German-English and English-German Dictionaries

My career in medical reference publishing began in 1989 when the German medical publisher Georg Thieme Verlag asked me to compile a bilingual dictionary. At that time there were no fast PCs or databases and compiling a complete new dictionary was a long and arduous task. Thus it took almost six years until the first book, Thieme Leximed Medical Dictionary English-German, was published in 1995. Approximately 85,000 entries with more than 250,000 translations made it by far the most comprehensive dictionary of its kind on the German market. more...

 

 

English Dictionaries

After working on bilingual English-German and German-English dictionaries for quite some years it was a welcome challenge to create English medical dictionaries as well. Since early 2007 we have finished 10 dictionaries and sold them to clients in more than 12 countries. more...

 

 

Dictionaries in other Languages

A new and very welcome addition to my previous work has been my cooperation with Springer Uitgeverij on client-specific dictionaries. So far we have completed more than 40 projects in 6 languages and 19 countries. more...

 

 

Translations

After publication of the first two bilingual English-German and German-English dictionaries I was asked to translate medical texts and books but also to contribute to multilingual dictionaries and to compile specific bilingual glossaries and databases. more...

 

 

Medical and Dental Database

Talking about „a“ medical and dental database is more or less wrong as there are a several databases that altogether make up one big database. Because of that it is difficult to give a precise description of the content or the number of entries. For example, for some German terms there are 4 or 5 different definitions on different levels plus an equal number of more or less comprehensive English translations. more...

 

 

Profile

Dr. Reuter was born in 1955 in a small town near Frankfurt in Germany. After receiving his high school diploma from Abendgymnasium Darmstadt he went to medical school at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz/Germany. During his studies he worked at the Department for clinical chemistry/laboratory medicine under Prof. Prellwitz, who was also his mentor for his doctoral thesis. more...

 

 

Quiz Show

A brand new feature to check your knowledge of Anatomy and Physiology. more...