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Dieter Koch-Weser

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German-American physician and medical researcher (1916–2015)
Parts of this article (those related to retrospective view of work of Koch-Weser and various international teams, and development of social medicine as integrating discipline) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (August 2019)
Dieter A. Koch-Weser
BornJuly 13, 1916 (1916-07-13)
Kassel, Germany
DiedJuly 19, 2015(2015-07-19) (aged 99)
North Andover, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Chicago; Northwestern University, MSc, MD
Occupation(s)Advocate of prevention, social medicine researcher, medical educator, AIDS researcher
SpouseSophie C. Schwender Koch-Weser
Children2
Scientific career
Institutions
National Institutes of Health
World Health Organization
Harvard
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Harvard Medical School

Dieter Koch-Weser (July 13, 1916 – July 19, 2015) was a German-American physician and social medicine and HIV/AIDS researcher based in the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. He was a long-time advocate of Dr. Albert Schweitzer's philosophy of Reverence for Life and a supporter of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. He was medically noted for his HIV/AIDS research in Peru and authorization of a book on the heterosexual transmission of AIDS. In public health and healthcare, he had long advocated "a shift from treating illness to preventing it."

Early life

Dieter A. Koch-Weser was born in Kassel, Germany on July 13, 1916, to Erich and Berta (Fortmann) Koch-Weser. Dieter's father was a Minister in the Democratic Weimar government. After Hitler seized power in the 1930s, his family and he left Germany and moved to Brazil, where they established a thriving coffee plantation in Rolandia, a municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil. Rolândia was settled by German immigrants who named it after (and erected a statue to) the medieval hero Roland, a symbol of freedom in Germany.

Education

Dieter Koch-Weser attended medical school in Sao Paulo, Brazil, then migrated to the United States to complete an additional medical residency with the University of Chicago, and earned his Master of Science and Doctorate (Pathology) (1951) degrees from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

After receiving his PhD in Pathology, Dr. Koch-Weser became an Assistant Professor of Pulmonology at the University of Chicago where he did specialized work on tuberculosis and immunology. While in Chicago he became an American citizen.

He then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to work as an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine at Case-Western Reserve University where he was also Director of the University Institute for Alcoholism Research. In the early 1960s he returned to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for two years to be Director of the Latin-American division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Returning to the United States he joined the faculty at Harvard Medical School under the deanship of Robert Ebert as a Professor of Tropical Public Health. During his long tenure there, he also served as Acting Chairman of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine while Department Head Julius B. Richmond served as Surgeon General of the United States in the Carter Administration, and then Associate Dean for International Affairs. He retired from these positions at Harvard in 1983 but continued his active affiliation with the Medical School until 1996.

Dr. Koch-Weser was a vocal advocate for the extension of access to medical care to underserved populations, and developed a particular interest in the needs of the African nations struggling with the AIDS epidemic. He consulted for numerous public health agencies over the decades including WHO (World Health Organization), UNICEF, World Bank, and NIH.

In his lifetime, he published more than fifty professional papers and over a dozen books and monographs. He was also active in many professional societies, a longstanding member of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Amnesty International, and a supporter of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowships.

He spoke several languages fluently and estimated that over his lifetime he had visited more than 90 countries around the ever-changing world of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Career

Career at Harvard

Professional service

Publications

Publications about Dieter Koch-Weser

Personal life

He had lived since 1997 in North Andover, Massachusetts with his wife Sophie, who had already passed in 2010. During his teaching years they had lived also in Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts.

Retirement and later years

After retirement, Dieter and his wife Sophie moved in 1997 to the Edgewood Retirement Community in North Andover, Massachusetts in 1997, where he is known as "the Mayor" for his combination of friendly personality and commanding presence. Although not especially tall, Dieter could always be identified in a room by his lush, swept-back mane of white hair. He continued to work as a consultant at the Education Development Center (EDC) in Boston, Massachusetts, later Newton, Massachusetts, and served as an author and reviewer of professional publications until his final years.

Death

Dieter celebrated his 99th birthday with family, friends, former colleagues at Edgewood one week before his death. Dr. Koch-Weser was survived by his brother Jan Koch-Weser, MD, and by two daughters, Carol-Ann Koch-Weser of Fremont, California and Suzanne (Koch-Weser) Anderson, a physician of Trumansburg, New York, and was predeceased by his wife, Sophie, in 2010. He had many nephews and nieces and six grandchildren, Meghan, Evan, Danica, Collin, Duncan, and Zoe, and had only recently enjoyed the then newly born first great-granddaughter, Acadia. One granddaughter is a social worker, and their grand niece, Susan Koch-Weser, ScD, who also speaks German and Thai, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine in the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, where she contributes also to health issues prevalent in Asian women.

References

  1. Obituary for Dieter Koch-Weser
  2. Alumni obituaries, Northwestern Medical, Northwestern University Northwestern University Medical Medical School, Accessed June 27, 2019
  3. Legacy.com obituary for Dieter A. Koch-Weser. Legacy.com, Accessed June 27, 2019
  4. Obituary for Dieter A. Koch-Weser (July 13, 1916-July 19, 2015). Conte Funeral Home. Accessed June 27, 2019
  5. Koch-Weser D. The Heterosexual Transmission of AIDS in Africa. Abt Books. (December 1, 1988). ISBN 978-0890116036.
  6. Willich SN, Elm S (Eds). Medical Challenges for the New Millennium: An Interdisciplinary Task, 2001. Specifically p. xiv in Front Matter.
  7. Willich SN and Elm S.(Eds) Medical Challenges for the New Millennium: An Interdisciplinary Task. pp. vii-xiv.
  8. "Divisão Territorial do Brasil" (in Portuguese). Divisão Territorial do Brasil e Limites Territoriais, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). July 1, 2008. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  9. "Estimativas da população para 1º de julho de 2009" (PDF) (in Portuguese). Estimativas de População, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). August 14, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  10. "Ranking decrescente do IDH-M dos municípios do Brasil" (in Portuguese). Atlas do Desenvolvimento Humano, Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD). 2000. Archived from the original on October 3, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  11. "Produto Interno Bruto dos Municípios 2002-2005" (PDF) (in Portuguese). Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE). December 19, 2007. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 2, 2008. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  12. Mainka, Peter Johann (2008), Roland und Rolândia im Nordosten von Paranà: Gründungs- und Frühgeschichte einer deutschen Kolonie in Brasilien(1932- 1944/45), Cultura Acadêmica, ISBN 978-8598605272
  13. Immigration to the United States: Dietrich Koch-Weser
  14. New York State, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1917-1967. Passenger lists.
  15. Illinois, Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991. Citizenship Records
  16. Mention of Dietrich Koch-Weser in Willich SN and Elm S.(Eds) Medical Challenges for the New Millennium: An Interdisciplinary Task. pp. xii-xiv. Koch-Weser worked to establish layers of prevention in both clinical practice and medical education, rather than relying entirely upon post-diagnosis intervention as the model of healthcare
  17. "History of the Department. Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. Harvard Medical School. Mention of Koch-Weser's administrative role under Department of Social Medicine and Health Policy, 1980–1984 and earlier: Seeds of social medicine and global health: preventive medicine, community health". Archived from the original on 2019-04-02. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  18. Memorial Minute for Osler Luther Peterson, Faculty of Medicine. Published in Harvard Gazette on May 31, 2001. Detlev Kosh-Weser chaired the Memorial Minute Committee
  19. Masthead of AJPH. January 1990 Volume 80, Number 1
  20. Koch-Weser DA. Book Review: Preventive Primary Medicine: Reducing the major causes of mortality By Robert Lewy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. $9.95. October 1980. New England Journal of Medicine 303(18):1069-1070. doi:10.1056/NEJM198010303031828, cited in ResearchGate and accessed June 27, 2019
  21. Koch-Weser, D. (1970). "Rifampin, new hope in the fight against tuberculosis". The New England Journal of Medicine. 283 (12): 655–6. doi:10.1056/NEJM197009172831210. PMID 5450639.
  22. Dieter A. Koch-Weser Obituary. Accessed June 27, 2019
  23. Legacy.com obituary for Sophie C. Koch-Weser
  24. Mention of Jan Koch-Weser, MD, as mentor of David J. Greenblatt, MD, who was on the Faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine and the Staff of Tufts Medical Center since 1979 and who won the 2016 Award in Excellence in Clinical Pharmacology and the 1980 Unit Award in Clinical Pharmacology from the PhRMA Foundation
  25. Koch-Weser, Jan (1972). "Clinical Detection of Drug Interactions". Drug Information Journal. 6: 42–47. doi:10.1177/009286157200600110. S2CID 71542566.
  26. Faculty profile for Susan Koch-Weser, Public Health Division in Tufts University School of Medicine
  27. Professional profile for Susan Koch-Weser, ScD
  28. From collecting data to collective impact: A report on the 3rd Annual Asian Health Symposium
  29. Zhao, N.; Koch-Weser, S.; Chung, A. L. (2019). "Translation of Nutrition Science for the WIC Program and the Impact of Organizational Readiness for Change on Successful Translation (P17-008-19)". Current Developments in Nutrition. 3 (Suppl 1): nzz038.P17–008–19. doi:10.1093/cdn/nzz038.P17-008-19. PMC 6574997.
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