Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: T here are few names synonymous with clinical hyper- tension in the United States, and the name Norman Kaplan is surely one of them.Our first contact with Dr Kaplan occurred via his single-authored textbook Clinical Hypertension in its third edition in 1983, published by Williams and Wilikins.Norman went on to write 8 more editions over his >60 year career in high blood pressure care and education.Many a student of the pathophysiology, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of hypertension was weaned on his pioneering textbook.Some of our dearest memories of Norman came from his participation in the American Heart Association Hypertension Summer School Programs, which he graciously attended in most, if not all years, over several decades.The Hypertension Summer School was a setting in which 60 to 100 students would camp out for 4 days with about 20 faculty during which we would teach, discuss, and philosophize about hypertension literally from dawn to dusk.Norman was a master at this.The Hypertension Summer School environment brought out the educator and more importantly the consummate "teacher" in Norman.His signature approach to education was characterized by a combination of a thorough knowledge of the field, a direct no-nonsense approach to the lecture, and sprinkled on top of that a healthy dose of Texas humor.One vivid example of his humor was when he spontaneously and seemingly by magic produced an aneroid blood pressure measuring device and stethoscope and took a student's blood pressure and, while doing everything wrong, proudly exclaimed, "this is why a physician should NEVER take a blood pressure!"The hypertension literature is punctuated by a large number of Kaplan submissions.Norman had an interesting way of titling some of his opinion pieces.His huge reputation in the field of hypertension made him a much sought after opinion leader, writing articles with titles like "Recent clinical trials: the good, the bad, and the misleading" 1 "Bashing booze: The danger of losing the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption," 2 and "Critical comments on recent literature.SCRAAPHY about MAPHY from HAPPHY." 3 One favorite "Kaplan pearl" was his approach to a patient with urgent hypertension and anxiety in the clinic.He would describe a relatively young patient with elevated blood pressure, in the midst of what sounded like a panic attack, "losing it" in his clinic at Parkland Hospital.His therapy was not a dose of clonidine-or a bite-and-swallow capsule of Procardia.Instead, he would reach into a pocket, extract a paper bag, and hand it to the patient with instructions to breathe into this medical device until he returned in a few minutes to recheck the individuals blood pressure.
Source: Hypertension
Language: Lithuanian
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3037095432