Juan Manuel Taveras Rodrígues (September 27, 1919 – March 28, 2002) was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He would become known as the father of neuroradiology as he revolutionized the practice through developing new techniques, equipment, and new training methods. He received an MD (1943) from both the University of Santo Domingo and (1949) from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed his residency at Penn’s Graduate Hospital and left in 1952 to join Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons as the Director of Radiology at their Neurological Institute.
While at Columbia, he established the Health-Funded fellowship program, which continues to this day as the longest continuous postgraduate course in neuroradiology. In 1964, he founded and served as the first acting president of the American Society of Neuroradiology. As he reached the end of his tenure at Columbia in 1964, he co-authored the first English textbook on neuroradiology, which would act as the standard for generations to come. In the same year, he served on the Neurologic Sciences Training Committee of the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness as their first radiologist.
In 1965, Dr. Raveras accepted the position as Chairman of Radiology and Director of the Edward Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where he served for almost six years. He then served as a Professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Radiologist-in-Chief. Before he died in 1990, he was awarded the Knight of the Order of Duarte Sanchez y Mella award by the Dominican Republic and received various gold medals from radiology organizations.
REFERENCES:
- https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/03/juan-manuel-taveras/
- https://www.ajnr.org/content/23/7/1065.full
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8185710/
IMAGE SOURCE:
- Juan M. Taveras, 1960
- Unknown Photographer
- P & S: The Yearbook of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (1960).
- Published by the Fourth Year Class of College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York
- Public Domain
