Dr. Norman Kaplan, a leader in early hypertension treatment and research who founded UT Southwestern’s hypertension program in the early 1960s, has been named Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Kaplan literally wrote the textbook on the subject, Kaplan’s Clinical Hypertension, which served as the field’s bible for decades. “It was translated into about 10 different languages, including Russian and Chinese, Japanese – even Polish and Turkish,” Dr. Kaplan said.

After graduating first in his UT Southwestern Medical School Class of 1954, Dr. Kaplan completed a residency and fellowship at Parkland Memorial Hospital. He then served in the Air Force as a medic during the Korean War.

He returned to UT Southwestern in 1961 as an Instructor of Internal Medicine. The late Dr. Donald W. Seldin, then-Chair of Internal Medicine, told him “to go ahead and start doing what you want to do,” Dr. Kaplan recalled.

Convinced that high blood pressure was a greater problem than commonly recognized at the time, Dr. Kaplan started a lab to investigate hypertension. “Nobody else was focusing on it, and we recognized it was common and a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes,” he said.

In the decades that followed, Dr. Kaplan and fellow UT Southwestern colleagues trained others who became leaders in the field and led clinical trials into some of the first hypertension drugs – drugs like ACE inhibitors, which coax blood vessels to relax, and angiotensin, which dilates, or widens, blood vessels. Later, calcium channel blockers were added to lower blood pressure, he said.

When he started practicing medicine, diuretics were virtually the only pharmaceuticals to battle high blood pressure, Dr. Kaplan said.

Dr. Kaplan rose to Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Hypertension Division (now the Hypertension Section). He practiced medicine at UT Southwestern for 61 years, then stepped back in 2015 to an advisory role. “Sixty-one years is enough,” he said.

In recognition of his contributions in cardiology, Dr. Kaplan received the Irvine Page & Alva Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Heart Association’s Council for High Blood Pressure Research (now the Council on Hypertension) in 1997. He was also a founding member of the Executive Committee of the American Society of Hypertension.

Dr. Wanpen Vongpatanasin, a Professor of Internal Medicine who now heads the Hypertension Section and the Fellowship Program, calls Dr. Kaplan “a true hypertension legend and thought leader in our field.”

“Kaplan’s Clinical Hypertension became a standard reference textbook. In addition, he started the Hypertension Fellowship Program here,” Dr. Vongpatanasin said. “Many of his trainees have become leaders in hypertension research. “I am deeply thankful for all of his contributions to hypertension practice and research.”

While he will continue checking in with staff at the Parkland Health & Hospital System Hypertension Clinic about once a month, Dr. Kaplan now spends most of his time reading and watching football. Two of his four daughters became doctors, both graduating from UT Southwestern Medical School.

“It’s been wonderful – a remarkable place to be involved with,” the son of South Dallas grocers said of his years at UT Southwestern.