Tom Koch Home Page, Author, Lecturer, Researcher

ADULT CRISES
Second Chances
Watersheds
Papers/Presentations/Lectures

ETHICS / BIOETHICS
The Wreck of the William Brown
Scarce Goods
The Limits of Principle
Papers
Presentations/Lectures

AGING / CAREGIVING
Mirrored Lives
A Place in Time
Age Speaks for Itself
Presentations/Lectures

MAPS, MAPPING, GIS
Cartographies of Disease
Papers/Presentations

NEWS & INFORMATION
The Message is The Medium
Journalism for the 21st Century
The News as Myth
Papers
Presentations/Lectures

CYCLING & MARTIAL ARTS

BIOGRAPHY

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HOME PAGE

Author, Lecturer, Researcher

Subject areas: Elder care and gerontology, medical and general ethics. Topics: adult crises, cycling and transportation, living with disability, disease mapping and medical geography, euthanasia, home care, news and online information, organ transplantation. Tom Koch has published popular and technical works in all these areas.

His current appointments include: Adjunct professor of geography (medical) at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada); Adjunct professor of gerontology, Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada); bioethicist, Canadian Down syndrome Society (Research Council) and a former member of its board of directors; consultant in bioethics and gerontology, Copeman Healthcare Centre, Vancouver; Forum associate at the David Lam Centre for International Communication, Simon Fraser University.

For twenty years Tom Koch has published books and articles-popular and professional-on the issues of health and illness informed by his practical work. In the field of elder care and disability, he pioneered the use of life narratives as a vehicle for the examination of the issues of age, fragility, and change. The first to explore the perspective of the home-based caregiver (Mirrored Lives 1990), Dr. Koch has worked with over 150 caring families and written about their perspectives and concerns (A Place in Time, 1993). That work lead to the considerations of non-geriatric lives and narratives (Watersheds, 1994, and Second Chances, 1998), of people facing other fundamental medical and social challenges. In 2000 his third book on elder care, Age Speaks for Itself, offered a series of narratives by fragile seniors as well as a commentary on advancing age from the perspective of fragile seniors themselves.

As a research associate in bioethics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, Prof. Koch directed a pilot program using multicriterion decision making to develop policy in areas of bioethical uncertainties. These programs were the basis for his book, The Limits of Principle (1998), and offer a new approach to community involvement in bioethical debates. As a bioethicist practically involved in issues of care for the fragile he has written, lectured, and debated issues in the area of disability rights, euthanasia, genetics, and organ transplantation policy.

In Cartographies of Disease: Maps, Mapping, and Medicine (2005) Dr. Koch anchored the history of infectious disease studies with the history of medical maps used for 300 years in the study of disease. The result provided both a history of medical mapping and of social perspectives on environmental contributors to the occurrence of infectious disease. This work followed upon a study of ethical debates based upon the "defense of necessity" and "human nature" whose legal origins arise in a landmark nineteenth century case. The Wreck of the William Brown (2004) was an attempt to reevaluate "lifeboat ethics" in the story of the seminal case, US v Holmes, in 1842.

A former daily news reporter and editor (CBC, UPI, newspapers and magazines), he is a respected authority on journalism and medical reportage. His best-known works in this area concerns the relationship between online resources and public information. In a series of articles and books (The News as Myth, 1990; Journalism for the 21st Century, 1992; and The Message Is the Medium, 1996), Dr Koch has presented both a unique analysis of news as public information, and the place of online resources in journalism. In the mid-1990's he created a program on electronic data and journalism for the European Journalism Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Professor Koch is currently the director of Information Outreach, Ltd. Based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The company offers primary research and public education services. Tom Koch is currently available through IOL for both speaking and research projects.

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