Daniel Max Kaplan

(Durham, NC, Dec 11, 2025) The world has lost an extraordinary human being. Daniel Kaplan (62) was a loving father, husband, son, brother and friend. He was also a brilliant and compassionate physician, consummate birder, exceptional teacher, true mensch, and endowed with a wicked sense of humor.

Dan was the first son of Ellen and the late Berton Kaplan and grew up in Chapel Hill, NC. He spent most of his life in North Carolina, leaving to attend Harvard University in Massachusetts and returning to UNC for the best medical education available. He trained in internal medicine at the University of Virginia and then spent four years farther afield, mostly in Phoenix, where he was a pioneer in the field of hospital medicine. He came back to North Carolina to practice at WakeMed where he co-founded their hospitalist service.

He met the love of his life, Marian Abernathy, to whom he was married for 26 years. After children Celie and Alex were born, and the commute from Durham to Raleigh grew longer, he found a new work home at Duke University Hospital, where he was one of the first hospitalists on the faculty, caring for patients and training future clinicians for almost 20 years. His colleagues remember his wisdom, kindness, good humor, humility, and his extraordinary ability to diagnose and treat patients.

Other than his love of family, Dan’s great passion was birds (actually, anything in the sky - weather, planes, stars and planets). As a middle schooler at Carolina Friends School, Dan’s fascination with birds was nurtured and supported, sparking a life-long avocation. He often said that birding was wonderful training, “all about problem solving through attention to detail and pattern recognition. Puzzles fly past us and we try to name them before they get away.” In recent years, Dan developed a great talent for bird photography, documenting birds near and far, including many at the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association’s 17 Acre Wood and Sandy Creek Park.

Dan was among the doctors who selflessly stepped up to staff the Covid wards at the beginning of the pandemic, learning and teaching about this new disease. During the still-dangerous days of 2021, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He was fortunate to be cared for by the incredibly talented clinicians at the Duke Cancer Center. Dan tackled the disease head-on and with intention to live each day to its fullest, which he did. After a year of intensive treatment, he went back to work for another year, and then retired in December 2023. He packed an intense amount of living into the next year and a half - traveling, birding, spending time with family - before a tenacious lung infection limited him.

Dan is survived by his wife, Marian Abernathy, and children Celie and Alex Kaplan; mother Ellen Kaplan; brother Ron Kaplan (Barb Hipp) along with their children Anna and Harris. He is also mourned by his extended family, numerous colleagues and friends, his birding buddies, and dog Luna. He leaves an incomplete life list of 2,958 species of birds, many of which he photographed beautifully and included on his lists in eBird.

A funeral service will be held in person Monday, December 15, at 11am at Judea Reform Congregation, 1933 W Cornwallis Rd., Durham, NC, and also livestreamed for those unable to attend in person, with a brief reception immediately following in the temple’s Levin Social Hall.

Honor Dan’s memory by taking a moment to appreciate your natural surroundings– the birds are always there if you listen closely. Memorial contributions may be made to the Judea Reform Congregation Refugee Resettlement and Immigrant Justice Fund or the Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association (ECWA).