RSNA Press Release

CHICAGO - R. Gilbert Jost, M.D., today was named chairman of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Board of Directors at the Society's annual meeting in Chicago.

Dr. Jost, who was elected to the RSNA Board of Directors in 1999 as the liaison-designate for Communications and Corporate Relations, is the Elizabeth Mallinckrodt Professor of Radiology, radiology department chair for Washington University School of Medicine, and director of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis.

His association with Mallinckrodt Institute goes back to 1972, when Dr. Jost began his radiology residency. By 1974, he was the chief resident in radiology at Mallinckrodt Institute and in 1985 became a professor of radiology, an affiliate professor of computer science, and chief of diagnostic radiology at Washington University. He assumed the chairmanship of the department in 1999.

"I feel fortunate to have been associated with Washington University School of Medicine," Dr. Jost said. "It offers a remarkably rich, collegial environment, and I am blessed with wonderful colleagues at Mallinckrodt."

Dr. Jost was born and raised in Philadelphia. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in the early 1960s and earned his medical degree at Yale University Medical School.

Having developed an early interest in computers, Dr. Jost in 1968 accepted a fellowship to investigate medical computer applications at the Yale medical and engineering schools. He followed this with an internship in internal medicine at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, and then became a research associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Jost's first published article, "Intrauterine Electroencephalogram of the Sheep Fetus," based on his medical school thesis, appeared in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1972. Since that time he has published more than 120 journal articles, proceedings or book chapters.

His continued interest in computers is reflected by the fact that as early as 1977 he was on the American College of Radiology Committee on Computers and later served as chairman of the Radiology Information System Consortium. He is an ACR fellow and has the distinction of being named an inaugural fellow of the Society for Computer Applications in Radiology. In 1993, he became a member of the RSNA Electronic Communications Committee and was appointed chairman in 1998. He has been influential in the adoption of the DICOM standard and was an early promoter of the IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise) movement. He has also served on the RSNA Strategic Planning Committee, the RSNA Educational Council, the RSNA Publications Council and the RSNA Medical Imaging Resource Center Committee. In 2002, his Board assignment was changed to Liaison for Annual Meeting and Technology.

"Participation in organized radiology has offered me a chance to give something back to the specialty that has been so generous to me," Dr. Jost said. "The RSNA continues to have a profound influence on the specialty of radiology and I am proud to be associated with this great organization."

RSNA is an association of more than 37,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists and related scientists committed to promoting excellence in radiology through education and by fostering research, with the ultimate goal of improving patient care. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill.