Peter Koch, PhD
Assistant Professor of Philosophy Villanova University
- Villanova PA
Peter Koch, PhD, is an expert in philosophical issues of biomedical and clinical ethics related to patient well-being, harm and disease.
Areas of Expertise
Biography
Dr. Koch is an experienced clinical ethics consultant with a demonstrated history of working in high volume critical care and nursing care settings. His publication topics include patient welfare, the metaphysics of brain death and a range of issues within biomedical and clinical ethics. Dr. Koch frequently presents research to clinical and academic audiences both nationally and internationally.
Education
State University of New York at Buffalo
PhD
Loyola University of Maryland
BS
Select Accomplishments
SUNY Buffalo Department of Philosophy Outstanding Teacher Award
2013
SUNY Buffalo Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching Award
2013
Affiliations
- The Academy for Professionalism in Health Care
- The American Catholic Philosophical Association
- Baylor College of Medicine Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy
- Romanell Center for Bioethics and Humanities (Buffalo, New York)
- Weill Cornell Medical Center Clinical Ethics Service
Select Academic Articles
What's the Harm in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation?
The Journal of Medicine and PhilosophyKoch, P.
In clinical ethics, there remains a great deal of uncertainty regarding the appropriateness of attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for certain patients... In this paper, I use emerging philosophical literature on the notion of harm to argue that the ambiguities and disagreement about harm create important and oft-overlooked challenges for the ethics of CPR... To address these challenges, I propose two strategies for identifying and minimizing the impact of such uncertainty... These strategies, coupled with a richer philosophical understanding of harm, promise to help clinicians and ethicists navigate the prevalent and difficult cases involving patient resuscitation and many other harm-based decisions in the clinical setting.
We Don't Need Unilateral DNRs: Taking Informed Non-Dissent One Step Further
Journal of Medical EthicsReal de Asúa, D., Lee, K., Koch, P., de Melo-Martín, I. & Bibler, T.
Although shared decision-making is a standard in medical care, unilateral decisions through process-based conflict resolution policies have been defended in certain cases. In patients who do not stand to receive proportional clinical benefits, the harms involved in interventions such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation seem to run contrary to the principle of non-maleficence, and provision of such interventions may cause clinicians significant moral distress. However, because the application of these policies involves taking choices out of the domain of shared decision-making, they face important ethical and legal problems, including a recent challenge to their constitutionality. In light of these concerns, we suggest a re-conceptualization of informed non-dissent as an alternative approach in cases where the application of process-based policies is being considered. This clinician-directed communication model still preserves what is valuable in such policies and salvages professional integrity, while minimizing ethical and legal challenges.
Building a Vibrant Clinical Ethics Consultation Service
The National Catholic Bioethics QuarterlyBruce C.R., Lapointe, J., Koch, P., Lee, K. & Fedson, S.
The authors work in a variety of clinical ethics consultation services (CECSs) that employ a range of methods and approaches. This article discusses the approach to ethics consultation at the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine and describes the development and transformation of the authors' CECSs. It discusses how one CECS shifted from a nascent program with only fifty consultations a year to a vibrant, heavily staffed service with five hundred ethics consultations a year.
What's in a Name? How "Deep Brain Stimulation" May Influence Patients' Perceptions
AJOB NeuroscienceKoch, P.
While the study by Lawrence and colleagues offers several important insights into the ethical issues related to the use of DBS for depression, a noteworthy yet unmentioned consideration is the effect of the very name of the treatment—deep brain stimulation—on the patients' perceptions of the treatment and their ensuing choices. The name deep brain stimulation is, of course, not the authors' own; it is standardized within the medical field. However, well-established research has shown that the language used to describe an option influences the subject's perception of that option: the framing effect. Thus, it is worth acknowledging the potential framing effects of the standardized description of the treatment as deep brain stimulation.
