Klaus Heilmann (extended biography)

Klaus Heilmann was a professor of medicine at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, is a drug expert, risk researcher and communication expert and today he still is active as an author and publicist.

 

Scientific research and teaching activities lead him to Sweden, Spain, the Soviet Union and regularly to the United States of America, where he held visiting professorships at various universities and taught for several years at the American Academy of Ophthalmology. For five years he was a consultant scientist at the Institute for Medical Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, and a visiting professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. During this time he also became co-founder of the international ophthalmological educational project „Orbis“ for which he performed 1982 at the mililitary airport of Houston the world's first live-transmitted eye surgery aboard an aircraft.

 

Heilmann published over one hundred scientific papers and about thirty textbooks and non-fictional books. Most of his medical and health technology books were translated into foreign languages, some were international best-sellers and trendsetters.

 

In his socio-political textbooks he was particularly concerned with the communication difficulties and language barriers in today's industrial society. Contributions to this appeared amongst others in the Basler Zeitung and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Financial Times Germany. In addition to his journalistic work, he practiced a lively lecture at home and abroad and was also known by radio and television appearances to a wider audience.

 

He advised companies and associations of large corporations in questions of risk perception and communication, so too 1986/87 the German Chemical Industry after the conflagration of Schweizerhalle (Basel) as well as the German Energy Industry after the Tschernobyl reactor disaster.

 

Heilmann was a film- and television producer, screenwriter and format developer for the German public-service broadcasters and TV channels ARD and ZDF. 1998 he founded the film- and television production company "TV Vital" for programs in the health sector. For four years he hosted on German television the weekly expert talk „Health“.

 

In addition, Klaus Heilmann has written novels and plays for radio and theatre and produced five audio books. He has also written nine children's books based on new characters he created.