Dr Seth Koch is a Brooklyn N.Y. native, educated at Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush, Brooklyn; Harpur College, (now Binghamton University in upstate N.Y); and then at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School in Philadelphia, where he was awarded his VMD degree in 1965. After practicing in general veterinary medicine, Koch returned to the University of Pennsylvania for an internship and then he was awarded a Seeing Eye Fellowship by the Seeing Eye Foundation for study in internal medicine. During that time, his interest in ophthalmology deepened and he applied for and received a National Institutes of Health Post Doctoral Fellowship to begin his studies at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School under the tutelage of Dr. Harold Scheie and at the Veterinary School with Dr. Lionel Rubin. After receiving a Masters degree from the Graduate School of Medicine, Dr. Koch opened his ophthalmology practice in Alexandria, Virginia and over the next forty- plus years remained in the greater Washington D.C. area and continued to teach senior students at the University of Pennsylvania Ophthalmology Clinics for twenty-five years. In addition, he trained numerous residents both part-time and full-time.
Dr. Koch was the consulting ophthalmologist at the National Zoo in Washington DC – a position he enjoyed for over forty years– evaluating the zoo animals for ophthalmic disease. He is the author of numerous papers and book chapters and has been a frequent lecturer on the topic of ophthalmic disease. He is considered a worldwide expert on the topic of parotid duct surgery. He is a founding father of the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmology (ACVO), was named a Charter Diplomate in 1970 and served as its president in 1976.
Subsequent to retiring from private practice, Dr. Koch now consults for major pharmaceutical companies in the field of toxicology and continues to see patients on a limited basis in suburban Philadelphia. He lives in Center City Philadelphia with his wife, Barbara, where they enjoy theatre, travel, and occasional visits from their extended family.
Upon his retirement, Dr. Koch decided to bequeath his entire slide collection – representing 40+ years of clinical practice and an incalculable number of cases – to the Koret School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Thousands of slides were scanned and reviewed, and the best images were selected to be included in this website and serve as a teaching and training tool in veterinary ophthalmology for one and all.