IN MEMORIAM

Paul Daniel Hoeprich, M.D.

Professor of Internal Medicine

Davis

1924 – 2004

 

Dr. Paul Hoeprich died in his home in Fairfax, Virginia on September 16, 2004, at the age of 80 from complications of lymphoma. He was born in Alliance, Ohio. He attended Harvard College on a scholarship and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1947. He served in the Army at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital from 1951 to 1953 and spent a year at Johns Hopkins Medical School. Paul was on the faculty at the University of Utah from 1957 until September 1967 when he came to UC Davis as one of the founding professors within the School of Medicine. Paul was the first division chief of infectious and immunologic diseases, he recruited a first rate faculty who could both handle the increasing clinical load for a young school of medicine but also maintain their innovative research. In the early days he had a lush set of interactions with the department of pathology within the medical school on antibiotic resistance. He also quickly established himself as a first rate clinician and scholar.

 

Paul was busy clinically up to the time of his retirement in 1995. He attended clinic weekly and often was called by past trainees or current housestaff to see extra patients due to his consummate skills as a clinician. He served on the general medicine wards and medicine clinic, and its busy infectious diseases consult service. Paul was recognized as a quiet man, who enjoyed teaching immensely. He had a soft touch to his critique on housestaff and fellow performance but set high standards. His notes were written in multi-color so that his various levels of thinking related to his consultation would not be missed. There were outstanding state-of-the-art consultations. He remained very current in the enlarging field of infectious diseases.

 

His research was quite broad and renaissance in nature, but he tended to concentrate on solving problems at the bench of antibiotic susceptibility and better techniques to both diagnose fungal infections and treat them.

 

As a member in the department of internal medicine, he had the greatest integrity and usually provided honest comments. He had a quiet sense of humor which was quite touching at times. The patients he came in contact with recognized him as a “true physician”. His most notable achievement was the production of the first comprehensive textbook in infectious diseases.

 

Paul Hoeprich’s first edition of Infectious Diseases: A Guide to the Understanding and Management of Infectious Process, which was first published in 1972 and clearly was a landmark sentinel event in the field of infectious diseases and immunology. It had over fifty contributors who were leaders in their particular fields, and he worked on it for 4 1/2 years. Like the four minute mile being run by humans, for the infectious disease community prior to the publication of this text book, it was an unachievable goal. Many in the field of infectious diseases at the time felt the hundreds of pathogens they confronted would defy textbook organization. It took someone with the pedantic skills of a physician, raised to pay attention to detail, and who loved to write. As Dr. Hoeprich described in the effort in the preface to the first edition; “the specialist in infectious diseases must be prepared to deal with involvement in any organ, system, or region of the body.” It became the Infectious Diseases textbook for many years, which was used to train several generations of infectious disease experts. Once this publication barrier had been breached, several other textbooks which were also multi-authored were published. Paul took great pleasure in the production of this book and guided it through five editions. It represented a life long respect for the evolving literature and the enormous growth that occurred during the late 1970s and 1980s in the field of infectious and immunologic diseases.

 

He was division chief until 1981 when he stepped down. During the next 14 years he devoted himself to scholarly activity, patient care, and the training of a large number of fellows in the field, who have now gone out throughout the country. Following retirement in 1995, Paul and his wife Muriel moved to the East Coast. They loved music and had several children who were accomplished orchestra players. Survivors include his wife of 56 years, Muriel B. Hoeprich of Fairfax, VA.; four children, Martha H. Kennedy of Fairfax, Paul D. Hoeprich Jr. of San Diego, T. Eric Hoeprich of Amsterdam and Kurt L. Hoeprich of Encinitas, Calif.; and seven grandchildren. His breaking of the “textbook barrier” in infectious diseases will stand out for decades as a major accomplishment. He showed the path to many others.

 

Richard Pollard

Stuart Cohen

Joseph Silva