Tuesday, March 24, 2009

William Schwartz, the co-discoverer of SIADH has died

William Schwartz has died.

Every Monday at noon during fellowship we had the fluid and electrolyte conference with Dr. Fred Coe. Dr. Coe has extra-sensory powers for electrolytes. When you presented, you would give just the electrolytes and he would re-create the entire case from the metabolic panel. During the lecture he would ask you to explain a certain pathophysiology and then excoriate you if your thoughts were lazy and poorly organized.

If you ever blamed a poorly characterized hyponatremia on SIADH, Dr. Coe would look at you and ask "If Bartter and Schwartz were here, at this table, right now, and were looking at the same data that you have provided, would they agree that this is SIADH? Would they?"

JASN re-printed the original 1957 article describing SIADH in 2001.

Goodbye Dr. Schwartz, yours are the shoulders we stand-on in the daily grind of clinical nephrology.
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