Kaplan earned his degree from
Rush Medical College in Chicago, after which he trained at the
University of Minnesota,
Yale University and the
National Cancer Institute. He once said he became interested in oncology after his father died of
lung cancer, the same disease which killed Dr. Kaplan, a non-smoker. Together with
Edward Ginzton, he developed the first medical
linear accelerator in the
United States while he worked at the
Stanford University Medical Center of
Stanford University. The six million volt machine was first used for treatment in 1956, soon after the earliest linac-based
radiation therapy, first used in London, England, in 1953. The first patient treated by Kaplan was Gordon Isaacs, who suffered from
retinoblastoma of his right eye, and the disease threatened his left eye. The patient survived into adulthood with normal vision in his left eye. His main focus was on
Hodgkin's disease, which was fatal before radiation therapy was used. In 1969, he became the first physician credited with the
Atoms for Peace Prize. He was the first radiologist elected to the
National Academy of Sciences in 1972. In 1979, he received the Charles F. Kettering Prize from the
General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. ==References==