1. Charles David Kelman was an American ophthalmologist, surgeon, inventor, jazz musician, entertainer, and Broadway producer.
47 Facts About Charles Kelman
1. 2.
Cryosurgery for cataracts remained in heavy use until 1978, when phacoemulsification, a procedure Kelman developed in 1967, became the modern standard treatment.
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Charles Kelman was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, and received the 2004 Lasker Award.
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Charles Kelman served as clinical professor of ophthalmology at New York Medical College and individually taught his techniques to many surgeons around the world.
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Charles Kelman pursued a career as an entertainer alongside his medical career.
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Charles Kelman began playing the harmonica at a young age and performed on a radio show, The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour.
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Charles Kelman later learned to play the clarinet and saxophone.
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Charles Kelman developed a musical comedy routine which he performed on television as well as in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, and Carnegie Hall in New York, alongside several notable jazz musicians and entertainers.
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Charles Kelman co-produced several Broadway musicals and wrote at least two off-Broadway musicals.
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Charles David Kelman was born on May 23,1930, in Brooklyn, New York, to Eva and David Kelman.
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Charles Kelman grew up in East New York before the family moved to Forest Hills, Queens.
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Charles Kelman's father was a Jewish immigrant from Greece who never received the proper compensation and recognition for his inventions, including the first tar-free cigarettes and cellophane Christmas wreaths.
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Charles Kelman inspired his son's desire to proudly seek recognition of his own inventions.
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Charles Kelman began playing music at four years old, when he learned to play his first instrument, the harmonica.
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Charles Kelman began playing regularly for The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour radio show.
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Charles Kelman learned to play the saxophone and clarinet, receiving professional training from musicians in the big band era.
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Charles Kelman dreamed of stardom in music he said that, when he was 17 years old, his father told him to bring his saxophone to the basement of their house and play for him.
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Charles Kelman played a song by Jimmy Dorsey after which his father asked if he had played as well as Dorsey.
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Charles Kelman then studied medicine at the University of Geneva and, after learning that his father was diagnosed with cancer, accelerated his studies with the hope of having his father see him becoming a doctor.
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In 1960, Charles Kelman started an ophthalmology private practice and began to experiment with the use of cryosurgery.
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In 1963, Charles Kelman then developed the use of cryopexy to treat retinal detachment.
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The idea for his next invention came to Charles Kelman after seeing an ultrasonic device at his dentist's office.
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Charles Kelman envisioned using a similar device that vibrates to break up a cataractous lens and remove it without a large incision.
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Charles Kelman named the procedure phacoemulsification, a technique that has become standard treatment for cataracts.
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Charles Kelman began testing the procedure on animals in April 1966.
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In 1967, Charles Kelman secretly conducted his first surgery on a blind patient, awaiting enucleation, who volunteered knowing that the procedure would not bring back his vision.
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Charles Kelman had made further improvements on the instrument, increasing the vibration speed from 20,000 cycles per second to 40,000 cycles per second and creating a smaller hand instrument.
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Charles Kelman began a novel business relationship with the manufacturer to produce the device.
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Charles Kelman decided to promote the procedure to the general public and, on February 21,1975, appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
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Charles Kelman published numerous articles, papers, and scientific book chapters, as well as a lay book, Cataracts: What You Must Know About Them, published by Crown Publishers in 1982.
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Charles Kelman continued to practice medicine, perform surgery, and teach alongside his career as an entertainer.
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Charles Kelman held more than 100 patents for his instruments and innovations, and became known as the father of phacoemulsification.
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Charles Kelman began composing music in high school and started a big band as a teenager.
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Charles Kelman continued his musical pursuits throughout his college education.
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Charles Kelman co-wrote "Le Petit Dejeuner " which was later recorded by the French singer Jean Sablon.
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Just as his medical practice flourished, Charles Kelman's celebrity grew after appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in 1975, where he sang a song about a blind girl and promoted his surgical innovations.
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Charles Kelman has appeared regularly on television shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Barbara Walters, Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman.
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Charles Kelman rented out Carnegie Hall for several benefit concerts in the mid-1970s.
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Charles Kelman co-produced several musicals on Broadway, including Can-Can, Triumph of Love, and The Sound of Music, and was a member of the Friars Club in New York.
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Charles Kelman recorded an album, Moonlight Serenade, released in 1992 by Columbia Records.
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In 1970, Charles Kelman was awarded by the American Academy of Achievement.
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In 1982, he was a recipient of the Congressional Salute in the US Senate, 97th Congress, in Washington, DC In 1985, Charles Kelman presented the first American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery Innovator's Lecture.
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Charles Kelman delivered the ASCRS's Binkhorst Lecture in 1989, the Ridley Medal Lecture at the International Congress of Ophthalmology in 1990, and the Arthur J Bedell Memorial Lecture at Wills Eye Hospital in 1991.
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In 1999, Charles Kelman was selected as one of the ten most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century by the ASCRS and became president of the society.
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Charles Kelman was awarded the 2004 Lasker Award, with the jury making an exception to the rules to allow the award to be given posthumously.
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Charles Kelman was an avid golfer and learned to fly a helicopter later in life.
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In 1996, Charles Kelman moved to Boca Raton, where he died of lung cancer on June 1,2004, at the age of 74.