OBITUARY

Shlomo Stern Z.L.
(February 10th, 1928 – October 27th, 2013)

He was born in Budapest and went to Israel in 1950, first to a kibbutz and then to Jerusalem in order to study medicine. He received his MD from the Hebrew University in 1958. He lived in Jerusalem until he retired from being the Medical Director and head of the Heiden Department of Cardiology at the Bikkur Holim Hospital.

He and his wife Nurit moved to Herzliya in 2006 to be close to their daughters and their families.

Shlomo continued to work at Assuta Hospital in Tel Aviv until he died.

He also continued to do his research in Jerusalem where he kept an office. He was Associate Professor (1978), Professor, (1996) and Professor Emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Shlomo was a member of the Department of Cardiology at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) since 1962 and served several times as a Visiting Professor at this institution.

Soon after the development of the Holter techniques, he started working on his favorite topic: silent ischemia, and published several papers, one of them, at the “British Heart Journal” in 1974, was a landmark on early detection of silent ischemic heart disease by 24-hour electrocardiographic monitoring.

In 1988, after successful Holter’s meetings in Cologne and Jerusalem, he founded together with Arthur J. Moss, Antonio Bayes de Luna, Harold L. Kennedy, Peter F. Cohn, Dan Tzivoni, Heinz Weber and Vinzenz Hombach the International Society for Holter Monitoring (later renamed the International Society for Holter and Noninvasive Electrocardiology) and he was elected the first President of the Society (1988–1992).

He was also Vice-President of the Asian-Pacific Society of Cardiology 1995/1996 and President of the Israel Heart Society 1995–1997. Dr Stern was Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association, New York Academy of Sciences and European Society of Cardiology.

He published 250 original articles in “Circulation”, “Circulation Research”, “American Journal of Physiology”, “American Heart Journal”, “Journal of Physiology”, “European Heart Journal”, “European Journal of Clinical Investigation”, “Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology”, “American Journal of Cardiology”, and “British Heart Journal”. He also published 3 books: “Ambulatory ECG Monitoring”, “Noninvasive Electrocardiology” and “Silent Myocardial Ischemia”.

Shlomo was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the “Journal of Ambulatory Monitoring” and later on became Co-Editor-in-Chief of the “Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology” and Section Editor of “Cardiology Journal”.

In 2009, during the XIII International Congress of ISHNE in Yokohama, Japan, I had the honor to present to him the Del Mar Senior award in recognition of his work.

Last year, he sent a very interesting article to “Cardiology Journal”; published in this issue, regarding ST changes and Holter techniques. This was his last paper and this is our humble tribute to this teacher, investigator and good person.

Besides all these achievements, Shlomo was a very good friend.

“Tehe Mishmato Tzrura Bitzror Ha Chaim” (May his soul be bound in the bundle)

Sergio Dubner, MD, FACC

Editor-in-Chief

Shlomo Stern delivering a lecture

Shlomo and his lifelong wife and companion, Nurit