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ePaper created 2014-09-15, 12:31:02 | version 1.32.01
Machiel Karel Polano Siemens was succeeded by Machiel Karel Polano (1907-1997). Polano came from a family of longstanding medical tradition. His great-grandfather had been professor of surgery in Leiden, his grandfather a general practitioner and his father a prominent dermatologist in The Hague. Polano studied medicine in Leiden and received his dermatological training in Siemens’s department. In 1934 he defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘The quotient cholesterol/phos- pholipoid in skin diseases’. In 1935 he joined his father’s private practice at the Municipal Hospital in The Hague. When Polano took over Siemens’s position patient care, research and education were modernized. While his predecessor had typically run a one-man practice and had never incorporated basic scientists in his department, Polano created new staff positions both for dermatologists and for basic scientists. The department was completely renovated and a new outward department and research laboratory were built. He introduced audio- visual teaching programmes for medical students and started postgraduate courses for dermatologists. Polano was an excellent clinician and a widely respected teacher both for his students and his residents. He continued his previous research on xanthomas in relationship to hyperlipoproteinemias, in close collaboration with other departments. The importance of collaboration with other clinical as well as basic disciplines is illustrated by the title of his inaugural speech: “Interchange between dermatologists and other disciplines”. He stimulated other staff members to develop their own lines of research, which focused on cutaneous lymphomas (Willem van Vloten), photobiology (Dick Suurmond), drug penetration into the skin and skin cultures (Maja Ponec) and electron microscopy of xanthomas (Bert Jan Vermeer). After his retirement in 1978 he continued publishing manuscripts and books including a new edition of Topical Skin Therapeutics and - together with Thomas B. Fitzpatrick and Dick Suurmond - the successful Color Atlas and Synopsis of Clinical Dermatology.[3,4] 81 Five Leiden professors of dermatology. From left to right: Rein Willemze, Bert Jan Vermeer, Machiel Polano, Dick Suurmond and Willem van Vloten (1992). BWEADVSMGFINCORR:Opmaak 1 21-07-2014 17:40 Pagina 81