Alexander Gottschalk, M.D., is a pioneer researcher and author who has helped to shape modern medical imaging. He worked with the first clinically useful prototype Anger scintillation camera and performed the first dynamic camera studies of the brain and heart using technetium-99m. Dr. Gottschalk also made the first dynamic camera studies of the kidneys.

 

“Alex has made great contributions to radiology and nuclear medicine over a long career during which he has consistently published textbooks in nuclear medicine recognized for their great pedagogical value,” said RSNA President Brian C. Lentle, MD. “He was alert and recognized the coming impact of magnetic resonance imaging in the early days of that technology. As one of the principal investigators in the prospective investigation of pulmonary embolism diagnosis (PIOPED) study, Alex greatly helped in our understanding of the natural history and diagnosis of pulmonary embolism.” Dr. Gottschalk is currently the chair of the Nuclear Medicine working group in PIOPED II.

 

For his numerous and varied contributions to radiology, RSNA is privileged to present its Gold Medal to Dr Gottschalk.

 

“It is awesome to become a Gold Medalist in this society, a group that contains many of my own role models,” said Dr Gottschalk.

 

After earning his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Harvard College where he was Phi Beta Kappa and his medical degree from Washington University Medical School in St. Louis where he was Alpha Omega Alpha, Dr Gottschalk completed an internship at the University of Illinois Research and Educational Hospitals and a radiology residency at the University of Chicago.

 

He began his career as a research associate at Donner Laboratory at Lawrence Radiation Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. He then spent a decade at the University of Chicago, where he helped form the university’s first section of nuclear medicine. While at the University of Chicago, he became professor of radiology, chief of the nuclear medicine section, chairman of the Department of Radiology, and director of the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital.

 

As professor of diagnostic radiology, Dr Gottschalk made the move to Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. At Yale, working with colleagues from cardiology, he established a pioneering cardiovascular nuclear medicine operation. He was also director of the section of nuclear medicine, vice-chairman of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, and director of the diagnostic radiology residency program. Currently, he is professor of diagnostic radiology at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

 

A dedicated researcher, Dr Gottschalk is author or coauthor of nearly 400 publications including peer-reviewed scientific articles, abstracts, books, and book chapters. For a decade, he was editor-in-chief of the Yearbook of Nuclear Medicine.

 

Dr Gottschalk has served on committees for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, as well as national committees for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of General Medicine Sciences, and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education where he was chairman of the RRC for diagnostic radiology.

 

Of his numerous awards, the ones he identifies as most dear to him include the gold medal of the Association of University Radiologists (AUR), and being named one of America’s Ten Outstanding Young Men of 1967 by the Jaycees.

 

An RSNA member since 1965, Dr Gottschalk has been an RSNA second vice-president and chairman of the nuclear medicine subcommittee of the RSNA Scientific Program Committee. He is a fellow of the American College of Radiology and the American College of Chest Physicians; a member of many other professional societies; and is a past president of the Association of University Radiologists, the Society of Nuclear medicine, and the Fleischner Society.