Wellesley's Dr. Hubert Caplan is honored by Massachusetts Medical Society

Waltham, Mass. – April 8  – Wellesley resident Hubert I. Caplan, M.D. has been honored by the state medical society as the 2014 recipient of the Award for Distinguished Service to the Massachusetts Medical Society. The award, one of the organization’s most prestigious, recognizes a member physician who has demonstrated a strong commitment to the goals of the Society through leadership and committee work. He will receive the award at the Society’s annual meeting May 16 in Boston.

In nominating him for the honor, his colleagues recognized Dr. Caplan for his “remarkable dedication and commitment to organized medicine,” and for being a “passionate, principled advocate and spokesperson on numerous and innovative issues.”  

A member of the medical society for 54 years and a counselor and delegate for 39 years, Dr. Caplan has served the state medical organization in a number of capacities. He has been a member of more than a dozen of the society’s committees and currently is a member of the Board of Trustees, the House of Delegates, and the Committees on Administration and Management, Professional Liability, Men’s Health, and Bylaws. He is also a trustee of the Boston Medical Library, a resource for the state’s four medical schools and the library of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and is a past president of the Charles River District Medical Society.

A magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, Dr. Caplan is board-certified in internal medicine and rheumatology, his subspecialty. He has served in key clinical positions on the staffs of a number of area hospitals. In the 1960s, he was Associate Director of the Rheumatic Disease Training Program and Physician-in-Charge of the Arthritis Clinic and Laboratories at the Tufts-New England Medical Center. He also served as Director of the Tufts Teaching Program and Chief of Medicine at the Jewish Memorial Hospital, Chief of the Rheumatic Disease Section at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, Director of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Glover Memorial Hospital in Needham, and a consultant at the Faulkner, Leonard Morse, Boston City and Boston Veterans Administration Hospitals.

A member of the active medical staff of Newton-Wellesley Hospital since 1967, he served as the hospital’s Chief of Rheumatology from 1977-1987 and Coordinator of Medical Mortality Review for almost 30 years. In 2007, he joined the Marino Center for Integrative Health in Wellesley, where he practiced until 2012.   

Named a Fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1972 and a Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology in 1989, he has been a member of the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine since 1958 and was promoted to Clinical Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in 2006.   

Beyond his clinical duties, Dr. Caplan has volunteered in several capacities with the Massachusetts Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation, including membership on its board of trustees for 16 years and on its Medical and Scientific Committee for 18 years. A veteran of the U.S. Army who served as a Captain in the Medical Corps, he has also been a member of the Health Care Subcommittee of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Veterans’ Affairs since 2008.  From 1982-1991, he served as President of the Lakes Environmental Association in Bridgton, Maine and has been on the Association’s board of directors since the mid-1970s. 

A published author on the subjects of rheumatology and arthritis, Dr. Caplan has been previously honored with induction into the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha. He is also the recipient of the Dean’s Special Clinical Educator Recognition Award from Tufts University School of Medicine and the first Angelo Pappanikou, M.D. Award from Newton Wellesley Hospital, both awarded for excellence in teaching physical diagnosis. In 2010, he received the Community Clinician of the Year Award from the Charles River District Medical Society and the Massachusetts Medical Society.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, with more than 24,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society, under the auspices of NEJM Group, publishes the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading global medical journal and web site, and NEJM Journal Watch alerts and publications covering 13 specialties. The Society is also a leader in continuing medical education for health care professionals throughout Massachusetts, conducting a variety of medical education programs for physicians and health care professionals. Founded in 1781, MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country.