Background
Plum was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on January 10, 1924. His father, Frederick Plum, a champion trapshooter and owner of a chain of drug stores, died when Plum was eight years old.
Plum was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on January 10, 1924. His father, Frederick Plum, a champion trapshooter and owner of a chain of drug stores, died when Plum was eight years old.
Bachelor, Dartmouth College, 1944. Postgraduate, Dartmouth College, 1944—1945. Doctor of Medicine, Cornell University, 1947.
Doctor of Medicine (honorary), Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, 1982. Doctor of Science (honorary), Long Island University, 1990.
He earned his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College in 1944 and was awarded his medical degree from the Cornell University School of Medicine in 1947. He was named head of the department of neurology at the University of Washington, making him the youngest chief in the institution"s history. There he created a respiratory center to help treat patients who were unconscious or comatose, including those who had suffered drug overdoses.
Working together with Glasgow neurosurgeon Doctor Byron Jennett, Plum developed the Glasgow Coma Scale, as an objective way of documenting and monitoring the conscious state of a patient based on eye motion, and motor and verbal responses.
Together with Jennett, he coined the term "persistent vegetative state" to describe patients with severe brain damage who were in a coma, and had the appearance of being conscious without any detectable awareness. Plum testified as an expert witness in the 1975 Karen Ann Quinlan case.
Plum later coined the term "locked-in syndrome" to describe a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate due to complete paralysis of most voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. Plum advocated that people should prepare an advance health care directive, or "living will", to help guide their treatment in the event that they are not able to make medical care decisions due to illness or incapacity.
Plum treated Richard Nixon before his death in 1994, and credited Nixon"s living will with allowing the former President to control his course of treatment with authority over how decisions were made at the end of his life.
A resident of Manhattan, Plum died at age 86 in a hospice there on June 11, 2010, due to primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia similar to Alzheimer"s disease.
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Member of National Academy of Sciences, Association American Physicians, Association Research Nervous Mental Diseases (president 1973, 1987), American Society Clinical Investigation, Society Neurosci., American Academy Neurology (past member council), American Neurological Association (vice president 1974-1975, president 1976-1977, Jacoby award 1984), Institute of Medicine, American Academy Arts and Sciences, Canada, British, French, Itatlian, Swiss neurological societies (honorary), Alpha Omega Alpha.
Married Susan Butler, April 23, 1990. Children from previous marriage: Michael, Christopher, Carol.