EDITORIAL
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
THE LAST AND FOND FAREWELL Toshio Ohshiro MD PhD
To start off the Editorial of this final issue of the 22nd volume of Laser Therapy, it is my sad task to bid the journal’s final farewell to “Kaplan’s Corner”, the very popular part of the journal where we were privileged to publish poems, instructional, reminiscent, humorous or otherwise, but always entertaining, penned by the late and much missed Professor Isaac Kaplan. We have to do this simply because we have come to the end of the stock of poems Prof Kaplan sent us when he was alive. This also gives me the chance to pay my own last respects to such a great man, in all senses of the word ‘great’. Even if a reader is somewhat unfamiliar with Prof. Kaplan, he or she would certainly recognize Isaac’s burning passion for the CO2 laser, and his lasting belief that it could be used for almost every surgical condition under the sun, provided the clinician understood the basic tenets of laser-tissue interaction and made them work for him or her. There is no doubt that Prof Kaplan was for the CO2 laser what Prof Leon Goldman was for laser dermatology, and Prof Endre Mester was for phototherapy: all of them legends in their own time, and leaving behind a legacy that will stretch into the foreseeable future. So much has been written about Isaac, our laser family Father, that there is not a great deal left for me to say. For anyone who would like to see one of the best tributes to Professor Kaplan and has not read it already, please see Dr R Glen Calderhead’s excellent and moving Obituary in Laser Therapy Volume 21, issue 3 (2012). Isaac and Masha were always so kind and gracious to my wife Yoshiko and me, always treated us like their own family, and a lump comes to my throat when I think of the many times we sat down together at some congress banquet in a far-flung corner of the globe, with Isaac keeping us all entertained with his pithy and witty anecdotes always delivered in that unique, rumbling, gravelly South African accent. Isaac’s jokes were quite often not totally politically correct, but probably all the more enjoyable for that. One he was really fond of regaling congress audiences with went as follows (imagine that unmistakable voice as you read this, and remember Isaac as he’d wish to be
Editorial 22:4
remembered …. with a smile on your face): A young man in a tennis club finishes his game and comes in to the juice bar with a couple of tennis balls stuffed into the front pocket of his tennis shorts, As he’s ordering his favorite healthy concoction, he becomes aware of the somewhat amazed and horrified stare of the young lady beside him, who is avidly gazing at the front of his tennis shorts. “Ah,” he laughed. “Tennis balls!” “Oh!” she exclaimed sympathetically. “That must be terrible for you. I had tennis elbow last week and that was bad enough.” ….. Isaac spared no blushes. Isaac was a rock for many of us, a rock of knowledge and of never-changing commitment to the furtherance of laser surgery, especially, and naturally, with the CO2 laser. The Sharplan laser was of course his successful attempt to provide surgeons with a practical CO2 laser designed by a surgeon. Later on, as many will remember, the Kaplan Pendulaser was a shining example of his commitment to the utility of the 10600 nm wavelength and his pioneering drive to bring CO2 laser surgery into the hands of as many surgeons as possible. The somewhat revolutionary Pendulaser was a true family affair, having been conceived and designed by Isaac himself, and produced in his son’s factory. It was cheaper than any other CO2 system, and, because it hung from a stand, it took up much less floor space than any other system. In addition to a handy and easily manipulated handpiece, it even had a semi-flexible light guide, based on the principle of total internal reflection from the special coating of a plastic tube. Sadly, the major laser companies did not take kindly to this interloper, even though it had come from the father of the CO2 laser, and it quietly faded into memories. I can assure the reader that it did in fact work, as I used one in my clinic for several years and it still exists as one of Isaac’s memories. When we think of Isaac, of course we also have to send our continuous thoughts and good wishes to his ever-present sweetheart and wife, Masha. They were inseparable, until separated, at least physically, by death.
241
EDITORIAL
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
“Masha and Isaac looking great together at one of the many laser society banquets they graced with their presence.”
Masha soldiers on, and we all wish her continuing health, the best possible, given the fact that we know she was not always in top form physically: despite that, she was a constant companion to Isaac, and we all know that his passing left a yawning gulf in her life, an emptiness impossible ever to fill. So, my dear friend and mentor, Professor Isaac Kaplan, and our laser family mother, Masha, please forgive us for not continuing your corner in the journal, Isaac, because you were sadly not able to continue penning your inimitable poems and we have finished all that we received from you. As a tribute to you both, I am dedicating this issue of the journal to you. Professor Kaplan, you may be gone, but you will never be forgotten. Dear Masha, may you enjoy the best of health and happiness well into the future.
Prof Kao has offered a scholarship fund of US $3,000, $1,000 for each of three papers per volume of the journal with the requirement that the first author should be under 40 years of age. On behalf of the journal I have very gratefully accepted, and Prof Kao wished to begin from this current volume. He has asked our assistance in the adjudication and administration process, so with Prof Kao’s approval of our selection, the three winners will be announced in Laser Therapy Volume 23:1 due out at the end of March, 2014. The award will be offered annually until further notice, so now our younger clinician and researcher readers have an added incentive to produce papers of excellence for consideration of publication in Laser Therapy. Please see Prof Kao’s formal announcement elsewhere in this issue of the journal.
Professor Ming-Chien Kao Award As you all know, the journal already offers an annual prize award for the best and the two top papers published in any issue of a particular volume of Laser Therapy. This Laser Therapy award was an idea of mine to encourage more scientific writing as journal contributions. Recently, my good friend and respected colleague, Professor Ming-Chien Kao from Taipei, Taiwan, approached me with the idea of establishing the “Ming-Chien Kao Award for Young Researchers”.
APALMS, WFSLMS, ISLSM and IPTA The 2014 meeting of the APALMS will be held in Singapore under the presidency of Professor Fong Poh Him. Full details and an announcement will appear in the March 2014 issue of the journal (Volume 23:1). As you know, there was a joint congress of the ISLSM and WFSLMS held under the auspices of the IPTA in Vilnius, Lithuania in September of this year. The minutes and announcements from these meetings are still in the finalization process, and will appear in full in
242
Toshio Ohshiro
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
the March 2014 issue of the journal. Suffice it to say that accord was reached on some contentious issues, and on the respective locations of the next congresses of these organizations.
End Notes
This 4th issue of Volume 22 brings us to the end of the journal’s year, and by the time you actually receive your hard copy of this issue we will probably already be in 2014, the Oriental Year of the Horse, so it’s goodbye Snake, hello Horse. For those of us who cele-
Editorial 22:4
EDITORIAL brate the new year on January 1st, may we on the Laser Therapy editorial team wish you all the very best of fortune for the New Year, and we hope that your holiday season, whenever or wherever it was, was as jolly as possible. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, especially those in the higher latitudes, the longest night will be over by the time you read this, and we will be on our way towards spring. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” asked Percy Bysshe Shelley in his “Ode to the West Wind ”. We are therefore looking forward from the long nights and short days to the season of renewal. In the case of those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, you will be at the peak of your summer, and probably wishing for the cooler days of autumn! Wherever you are, may the new year bring you all that you could wish for. May I remind you to keep sending in your papers? Apart from getting your paper published in a PubMed-listed journal, you now have two chances to win a valuable prize for your article if you are under 40, because of the Ming-Chien Kao Award, and of course our existing Laser Therapy Best/Good Paper Award is available for all articles published in any volume of the journal. Get writing! Tokyo, Japan: December, 2014
243
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
THE LAST AND FOND FAREWELL Toshio Ohshiro MD PhD
To start off the Editorial of this final issue of the 22nd volume of Laser Therapy, it is my sad task to bid the journal’s final farewell to “Kaplan’s Corner”, the very popular part of the journal where we were privileged to publish poems, instructional, reminiscent, humorous or otherwise, but always entertaining, penned by the late and much missed Professor Isaac Kaplan. We have to do this simply because we have come to the end of the stock of poems Prof Kaplan sent us when he was alive. This also gives me the chance to pay my own last respects to such a great man, in all senses of the word ‘great’. Even if a reader is somewhat unfamiliar with Prof. Kaplan, he or she would certainly recognize Isaac’s burning passion for the CO2 laser, and his lasting belief that it could be used for almost every surgical condition under the sun, provided the clinician understood the basic tenets of laser-tissue interaction and made them work for him or her. There is no doubt that Prof Kaplan was for the CO2 laser what Prof Leon Goldman was for laser dermatology, and Prof Endre Mester was for phototherapy: all of them legends in their own time, and leaving behind a legacy that will stretch into the foreseeable future. So much has been written about Isaac, our laser family Father, that there is not a great deal left for me to say. For anyone who would like to see one of the best tributes to Professor Kaplan and has not read it already, please see Dr R Glen Calderhead’s excellent and moving Obituary in Laser Therapy Volume 21, issue 3 (2012). Isaac and Masha were always so kind and gracious to my wife Yoshiko and me, always treated us like their own family, and a lump comes to my throat when I think of the many times we sat down together at some congress banquet in a far-flung corner of the globe, with Isaac keeping us all entertained with his pithy and witty anecdotes always delivered in that unique, rumbling, gravelly South African accent. Isaac’s jokes were quite often not totally politically correct, but probably all the more enjoyable for that. One he was really fond of regaling congress audiences with went as follows (imagine that unmistakable voice as you read this, and remember Isaac as he’d wish to be
Editorial 22:4
remembered …. with a smile on your face): A young man in a tennis club finishes his game and comes in to the juice bar with a couple of tennis balls stuffed into the front pocket of his tennis shorts, As he’s ordering his favorite healthy concoction, he becomes aware of the somewhat amazed and horrified stare of the young lady beside him, who is avidly gazing at the front of his tennis shorts. “Ah,” he laughed. “Tennis balls!” “Oh!” she exclaimed sympathetically. “That must be terrible for you. I had tennis elbow last week and that was bad enough.” ….. Isaac spared no blushes. Isaac was a rock for many of us, a rock of knowledge and of never-changing commitment to the furtherance of laser surgery, especially, and naturally, with the CO2 laser. The Sharplan laser was of course his successful attempt to provide surgeons with a practical CO2 laser designed by a surgeon. Later on, as many will remember, the Kaplan Pendulaser was a shining example of his commitment to the utility of the 10600 nm wavelength and his pioneering drive to bring CO2 laser surgery into the hands of as many surgeons as possible. The somewhat revolutionary Pendulaser was a true family affair, having been conceived and designed by Isaac himself, and produced in his son’s factory. It was cheaper than any other CO2 system, and, because it hung from a stand, it took up much less floor space than any other system. In addition to a handy and easily manipulated handpiece, it even had a semi-flexible light guide, based on the principle of total internal reflection from the special coating of a plastic tube. Sadly, the major laser companies did not take kindly to this interloper, even though it had come from the father of the CO2 laser, and it quietly faded into memories. I can assure the reader that it did in fact work, as I used one in my clinic for several years and it still exists as one of Isaac’s memories. When we think of Isaac, of course we also have to send our continuous thoughts and good wishes to his ever-present sweetheart and wife, Masha. They were inseparable, until separated, at least physically, by death.
241
EDITORIAL
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
“Masha and Isaac looking great together at one of the many laser society banquets they graced with their presence.”
Masha soldiers on, and we all wish her continuing health, the best possible, given the fact that we know she was not always in top form physically: despite that, she was a constant companion to Isaac, and we all know that his passing left a yawning gulf in her life, an emptiness impossible ever to fill. So, my dear friend and mentor, Professor Isaac Kaplan, and our laser family mother, Masha, please forgive us for not continuing your corner in the journal, Isaac, because you were sadly not able to continue penning your inimitable poems and we have finished all that we received from you. As a tribute to you both, I am dedicating this issue of the journal to you. Professor Kaplan, you may be gone, but you will never be forgotten. Dear Masha, may you enjoy the best of health and happiness well into the future.
Prof Kao has offered a scholarship fund of US $3,000, $1,000 for each of three papers per volume of the journal with the requirement that the first author should be under 40 years of age. On behalf of the journal I have very gratefully accepted, and Prof Kao wished to begin from this current volume. He has asked our assistance in the adjudication and administration process, so with Prof Kao’s approval of our selection, the three winners will be announced in Laser Therapy Volume 23:1 due out at the end of March, 2014. The award will be offered annually until further notice, so now our younger clinician and researcher readers have an added incentive to produce papers of excellence for consideration of publication in Laser Therapy. Please see Prof Kao’s formal announcement elsewhere in this issue of the journal.
Professor Ming-Chien Kao Award As you all know, the journal already offers an annual prize award for the best and the two top papers published in any issue of a particular volume of Laser Therapy. This Laser Therapy award was an idea of mine to encourage more scientific writing as journal contributions. Recently, my good friend and respected colleague, Professor Ming-Chien Kao from Taipei, Taiwan, approached me with the idea of establishing the “Ming-Chien Kao Award for Young Researchers”.
APALMS, WFSLMS, ISLSM and IPTA The 2014 meeting of the APALMS will be held in Singapore under the presidency of Professor Fong Poh Him. Full details and an announcement will appear in the March 2014 issue of the journal (Volume 23:1). As you know, there was a joint congress of the ISLSM and WFSLMS held under the auspices of the IPTA in Vilnius, Lithuania in September of this year. The minutes and announcements from these meetings are still in the finalization process, and will appear in full in
242
Toshio Ohshiro
available at www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/islsm
the March 2014 issue of the journal. Suffice it to say that accord was reached on some contentious issues, and on the respective locations of the next congresses of these organizations.
End Notes
This 4th issue of Volume 22 brings us to the end of the journal’s year, and by the time you actually receive your hard copy of this issue we will probably already be in 2014, the Oriental Year of the Horse, so it’s goodbye Snake, hello Horse. For those of us who cele-
Editorial 22:4
EDITORIAL brate the new year on January 1st, may we on the Laser Therapy editorial team wish you all the very best of fortune for the New Year, and we hope that your holiday season, whenever or wherever it was, was as jolly as possible. For us in the Northern Hemisphere, especially those in the higher latitudes, the longest night will be over by the time you read this, and we will be on our way towards spring. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” asked Percy Bysshe Shelley in his “Ode to the West Wind ”. We are therefore looking forward from the long nights and short days to the season of renewal. In the case of those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, you will be at the peak of your summer, and probably wishing for the cooler days of autumn! Wherever you are, may the new year bring you all that you could wish for. May I remind you to keep sending in your papers? Apart from getting your paper published in a PubMed-listed journal, you now have two chances to win a valuable prize for your article if you are under 40, because of the Ming-Chien Kao Award, and of course our existing Laser Therapy Best/Good Paper Award is available for all articles published in any volume of the journal. Get writing! Tokyo, Japan: December, 2014
243
