The Chicago School of Arrhythmology: revisited

The Chicago School of Arrhythmology (Katz, Langendorf and Pick) dominated the field of arrhythmias for at least 20 years until the advent of intracardiac electrophysiology in the late sixties. Thereafter they still played a fundamental role. Whereas other arrhythmologists also made contributions, they did not develop "schools" in the classical Platonic sense. The Chicago School's intuitive, deductive and inductive contributions to the understanding of multiple electrophysiological mechanisms were well appreciated, recognized and corroborated by basic and clinical electrophysiologists. Less known was their ability to propagate this knowledge in semi-tutorial courses which were so unique in explaining complex arrhythmic concepts that it is still used today by those who inherited their prominent position in the ever expanding world of invasive electrophysiology.