Kenneth Kaplan Award

 The Kenneth Kaplan Infectious Diseases Clinician Award is given annually to a Massachusetts infectious disease clinician recognized by colleagues as demonstrating excellence in all facets of the practice and teaching of clinical infectious disease.

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 The award is named in honor of Dr. Kenneth Kaplan (1934-1987).  Dr Kaplan was one of the first infectious diseases clinicians to work as an ID consultant in practice at a suburban community hospital.  In the mid-1960s, he joined the staff of Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts providing a model for other physicians in bringing their expertise in clinical infectious diseases, hospital epidemiology and infection control to hospitals outside the urban tertiary care centers.  By the 1980s, he joined with colleagues to form the Suburban Infectious Diseases Group, which met several times each year to present and discuss interesting or challenging cases, and share thoughts about infectious disease practice. 

 

 He was revered as a gifted and astute clinician and mentor.  In 1987, he and colleagues convened a grassroots meeting that ultimately became the Massachusetts Infectious Diseases Society as we know it today.  Two months thereafter, he died in a tragic accident.  The Suburban Infectious Diseases Group became the Ken Kaplan Club and the Ken Kaplan Infectious Diseases Clinician Award was established in his memory.