Pio F Poblete

Born in Cavite, Philippines, he was the sixth of seven siblings. A graduate of Cavite High School, he attended the University of the Philippines and later earned his medical degree from the UP College of Medicine, graduating valedictorian of the Class of 1963. He completed his residency in the Department of Medicine at the Philippine General Hospital in Manila and served as chief resident before receiving a fellowship grant for postgraduate training abroad.

He spent his first year in the United States as a cardiology fellow at the Institute for Cardiopulmonary Diseases of the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California. His training continued at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.; the Cardiology Branch of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland; and culminated with a fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston.

In the mid-1970s, he accepted a position as assistant chief for clinical investigations in cardiology at the USPHS Hospital (later known as Wyman Park Hospital of Johns Hopkins University) in Baltimore, Maryland. He later became director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory and subsequently chief of the Cardiology Division during his final years there. He then opened a private cardiology practice in Northern Virginia. He was a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and a Fellow of both the American College of Physicians and the American College of Cardiology in the subspecialty of cardiovascular disease.

During his academic career, he authored approximately two dozen papers. Among the most memorable was “Effects of Treatment on Morbidity in Hypertension: Veterans Administration Cooperative Study Group on Antihypertensive Agents.” This work was part of the landmark multicenter clinical trials led by Dr. Edward Freis, which were among the early studies in the era of evidence-based medicine.

He retired from cardiology practice in 2015. He is survived by his wife, Cristina Lontok Poblete; three children, Pio V. (Caroline), Annette (Robert), and Michelle (Judd); and five grandchildren, Alexander Pio, Mika, Daniel, Maia, and Rachel.

He often expressed a wistfulness for the Philippines and, from time to time, wondered how his life might have unfolded had the China Medical Board not granted his request for a waiver of the requirement to return home after training. But in 1972, martial law had just been declared, his practice was thriving, and his children were enrolled and on their way to an excellent education. He never forgot where he came from, always referring to trips to the Philippines as “going home.”

After 50 years in medicine, he summed up his feelings with a favorite quote from Sophocles, written more than 2,000 years ago: “One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.”