RICHARD CASH (1941-2024) A MEMORIAM: OUR FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE

Dr. Richard Cash touched and will continue to touch millions of lives globally following his death. As one of the developers of Oral Rehydration Therapy, his contributions to public health cannot be forgotten. But he was also a dedicated bioethics educator. I met Richard in 2001 at a research ethics conference in Karachi. He encouraged me to apply for the National Institutes of Health fellowship in Research Ethics at the Harvard School of Public Health. I complied and spent a year learning from him. A natural extension of this was inviting him to teach at CBEC, which he readily accepted. He was a friend and a mentor to faculty and a hit with students. Punctuating discussions with Urdu words like ‘han,’ ‘acha,’ he would discuss complex ethical notions with great ease. Few from the Global North teaching ethics in Asia have approached it with a local perspective. Richard was different. Whether it was eating chawal [rice] and fish curry with his fingers, or discussing the critical role of mothers-in-law in healthcare access for a childless daughters-in-law, he understood the local context. We have lost one of our own. Richard, rest in peace