In Memoriam: Solomon A. Kaplan (1924–2017)

Solomon Alexander Kaplan, MD, one of the original founding members of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, died on January 2, 2017, at the age of 92 (Fig. 1). Sol’s record as a clinician, teacher, researcher, mentor to trainees, and service to the field of pediatric endocrinology was accomplished over an amazing span of more than 60 years. Sol was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1924. He graduated from the University of Witwatersrand School of Medicine in 1945 and completed his internship at the Johannesburg General Hospital (1946–1947) and residency at the Transvaal Memorial Children’s Hospital (1947–1948). In 1949, Sol was awarded a Mead Johnson Fellowship under the auspices of the Society for Pediatric Research. Sol (along with his brother, Sam Kaplan) came to the Children’s Hospital of Cincinnati, where he was a Research Fellow and Instructor in Pediatrics, studying with Drs. George Guest and Samuel Rapoport. In 1953, he was appointed as Assistant Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Brooklyn. In 1954, he began 2 years of active duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve at the Naval Medical Research Institute Bethesda. Sol returned to SUNY in 1956 and was recruited to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) in 1959 as Associate Professor at the University of Southern California. He held the positions of Chief of Endocrinology and Director of Laboratories at CHLA until he was recruited to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine in 1968 at the rank of Professor, where he was Chief of the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology for the next 21 years. Sol began his research career in 1949, carrying out basic, translational, and clinical research addressing a multitude of questions. As a Research Fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Cincinnati, early research focused on the Fig. 1. Sol circa 1974.