President’s Address

RSNA President Vijay M. Rao, MD, will open RSNA 2018 with her President’s Address, “How Emerging Technology Will Empower Tomorrow’s Radiologists to Provide Better Patient Care.”

Dr. Rao will discuss how radiologists can harness the rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies to improve the quality of care they provide to patients, as well as to increase their stature within the medical community and the personal and professional satisfaction they derive from their work.

“The time has come for radiologists to position themselves to provide leadership in driving this field to the next level,” Dr. Rao says. “Radiologists will have to increase their knowledge of all aspects of diseases and data science aside from just the imaging aspects.”

A member of the RSNA Board of Directors since 2011, Dr. Rao is the David C. Levin Professor and Chair of Radiology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and senior vice president and chair of Enterprise Radiology and Imaging at Jefferson Health in Philadelphia.

Dr. Rao is a graduate of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India’s premier medical school. After completing her radiology residency in 1978 at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, she has remained on the faculty ever since. A passionate educator, she served as residency program director, associate chair and then vice chair for education, and co-director of the Neuroradiology/ENT division. In 2002, she was appointed chair of Jefferson’s Department of Radiology, becoming the first female chair of a clinical department in Jefferson’s history. In 2016, she was named senior vice president of Enterprise Radiology and Imaging at Jefferson Health. She is also a trustee of the Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals board.

Dr. Rao is recognized as one of the leading experts on imaging of the head and neck. She has published over 220 peer reviewed articles, a dozen book chapters and 275 abstracts in medical literature and has edited a popular atlas textbook on MRI and CT of the head and neck. She has served on the editorial boards of multiple prestigious radiology journals. She has given 300 presentations at national and international radiology meetings, including invited talks at other academic institutions, and several named lectures.

Dr. Rao has held many leadership roles in national organizations, including president of the American Society of Head and Neck Radiology, the Association of Program Directors in Radiology (APDR) and the American Association for Women Radiologists (AAWR). She has served the RSNA Research & Education (R&E) Foundation in a number of roles, including member of the Board of Trustees from 2008 to 2011, and currently since 2016. She is also a member of the board of the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research and the Pennsylvania Radiologic Society.

She has been recognized for her leadership and service to the specialty. She has received the APDR Achievement Award and the Distinguished Radiologist Award from the American Association of Radiologists of Indian Origin. In 2014, she received the gold medal of the Association of University Radiologists and the AAWR Marie Curie Award. Dr. Rao was also honored by the Israel Radiological Society with honorary membership.