The author was born in Mannheim in 1952 and spent his childhood and youth there. After graduating from the mathematics and science minor grammar school in 1971, he studied German law at the University of Mannheim and, after passing his first state examination, completed a second degree in medicine at the University Hospitals of Heidelberg and Mannheim until his licence to practise medicine in 1984. He then completed his specialist training as a radiologist in Lahr, Darmstadt and Heidelberg. In 1991, he set up his own practice with two colleagues in Heidelberg until he retired in 2017.