Biography

Qualifications
Career

Bernard Kouchner’s biography

Born on 1 November 1939 in Avignon (Vaucluse)

  Doctor of medicine
  Certificat d’études spéciales [specialist qualification] in gastroenterology
  Diploma in digestive endoscopy

  Lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2003
  Professor, Chair of Health and Development, at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers [CNAM - national school of engineering and technology] since 2002
  Senior civil servant and United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo (1999-2001)
  Founder (1980), president (1980-1984) and honorary president (1984-1988) of Médecins du Monde [non-profit-making organization whose members, all voluntary and doctors and nurses, help in times of emergency and situations of inadequate medical care in the third world]
  Co-founder and president of Médecins sans Frontières (1971-1979)
  Gastroenterologist at the Hôpital Cochin in Paris (1975-1987)
  Humanitarian missions to help victims in most of the major natural and industrial disasters and political crises since 1968

Elective offices
  MEP (1994-1997)

Ministerial offices
  Minister Delegate for Health (2001-2002)
  Minister of State for Health (1997-1999)
  Minister for Health and Humanitarian Action (1992-1993)
  Minister of State with responsibility for Humanitarian Action (1988-1992)
  Minister of State with responsibility for Social Integration (1988)

Other offices
  Chairman of the ESTHER public interest group [“Together in a hospital network of solidarity in care and treatment”]
  Founder-Chairman of BK Consultants
  Member of the Board of Directors, PlaNet Finance
  Member of the Honorary Committee, Children Action
  Member of the Board of Directors, International Women’s Health Coalition
  Founder-member of [the French humanitarian organization] “La chaîne de l’espoir”

Recently published works

   Deux ou trois choses que je sais de nous, Editions Robert Laffont, 2006

   La Fabrique démocratique, Editions Robert Laffont, 2006

   Les guerriers de la paix : Du Kosovo à l’Irak, Editions Grasset, 2004 [published in English as “The Warriors of Peace”]

(May 2007)