Tom studied philosophy at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and in Jena (Germany). After his studies, he worked from 2010 as a lecturer-researcher at the Metamedica department of Maastricht University. Themes that occupied him were biomedical ethics and health law, phenomenology of the body and philosophy of science. From 2016 he worked at The Hague University of Applied Sciences for the Nursing study program on the development of ethics education, and was responsible for the collaboration between the study program and the professional field. Together with Andries Hiskes, he wrote and taught the elective course The Art of Caring, in which students from care programs worked together with students from various art academies. At the time, Tom was also a researcher at Jacco van Uden’s Change Management lectorate. There he laid the foundation for the concept of ‘care aesthetics’.
Tom has been working at Leyden Academy since July 2022. Here he further develops the concept of ‘care aesthetics’ for care for the elderly. Care aesthetics is a hands-on theory in which the perception and responsiveness of care professionals are central. In the ‘care aesthetic workshop’ Tom, together with artists, the elderly and care professionals, looks for new ways to talk about care, in order to contribute to the development of future care professionals. In addition, the art of living for the elderly is an important theme for Tom. For this he is mainly inspired by the Stoic school and by the teachings of Benedictus de Spinoza.
Themes
Care aesthetics, physicality, educational innovation, art of living