Barbara A. Koenig, Ph.D.
phone: (650) 725-6103
email:
bkoenig at stanford dot edu[bkoenig]
Barbara A. Koenig, Ph.D., an anthropologist who studies contemporary
biomedicine, is Associate Professor, School of Medicine. Prior
to her move to Stanford, she served as the West Coast Research Coordinator
for The Hastings Center, a bioethics organization located in New York,
and she was also on the faculty of the University of California, San
Francisco. She received her undergraduate degrees in history, magna
cum laude, and nursing, with distinction, from the University of Minnesota. She
received her Ph.D. in Medical Anthropology from the University of California,
Berkeley and San Francisco joint program.
Dr. Koenig is one of a small number of anthropologists whose research
contributes to the interdisciplinary field of bioethics. Her research
focuses on two areas: end-of-life care and the ethical, social, and legal
implications of the genomic sciences. Her past projects in end-of-life
care have investigated topics such as how medical residents construct
seriously ill patients as "dying," and the social negotiation of "routine" biomedical
therapies. Her research has explored issues of multi-culturalism
in healthcare through the lens of end-of-life decision making, examining
how the dilemmas of western bioethics are experienced in urban, inner-city
American clinics and hospitals. Her research in genomics has focused
on the impact of testing for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes in families with
a history of breast and ovarian cancer. In particular, Dr. Koenig
has examined understandings of risks of disease.
Dr. Koenig has also served on the clinical ethics committees of hospitals and long-term care facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dr. Koenig has published in Issues in Science and Technology, The Hastings Center Report, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Journal of Clinical Ethics, Chest, Nursing Policy Forum, Western Journal of Medicine, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, and Nature Medicine. as well as other journals.. She is also on the editorial boards of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and Science, Technology, and Human Values.
Dr. Koenig has a long-standing interest in the cultural context of biomedical innovation. With Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics colleagues, she established the Stanford Program in Genomics, Ethics, and Society (PGES), an endeavor devoted to multidisciplinary research, as well as policy analysis, of the clinical challenges engendered by molecular genetics research. The PGES Group, of which Dr. Koenig serves as Co-Director, has conducted in-depth analyses of the social, ethical, and legal implications of DNA testing for the recently identified breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, as well as genetic testing for Alzheimer disease. Recommendations from these projects were published in 1998 in Nature Medicine (Alzheimer disease) and Journal of Women's Health (breast cancer). In addition, in October 1998, Dr. Koenig organized and participated in a PGES national conference examining the ethical, legal, and social implications of individual genetic variation in the transformation of medicine. Dr. Koenig will also be co-editor of a book forthcoming from Cambridge University Press on implications of testing for the breast cancer genes. She co-authored several articles for a special edition of the journal Genetic Testing, published in May 1999 which was devoted to the work of members of PGES and the working group that considered ethical implications for testing for Alzheimer disease. In 1999, she was appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna Shalala, to a two-year term on the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing.
Dr. Koenig is an elected fellow of The Hastings Center, a fellow of the Society of Applied Anthropology, and has served on the executive board of the American Association of Bioethics. Currently she serves on the executive board of the Society for Medical Anthropology. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Nursing Research, the WennerGren Foundation, the Greenwall Foundation, GTE Foundation, the SmithKline Beecham Corporation, the Beckman Foundation, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the State of California's AIDS Research Programs, and the Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America of which she was named a Faculty Scholar in 1999.
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