RSNA Press Release

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

Dr. Hricak, Chairman of the Department of Radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, is currently a professor of radiology at Cornell University Medical College, as well as an attending radiologist at Memorial Hospital in New York.

"RSNA's leadership and volunteers are extremely talented and energetic," Dr. Hricak said. "I look forward to working with this wonderful team to maintain the preeminence of the organization and increase its value to its members, the medical community and, ultimately, to patients. We will continue to advance radiology's role in improving patient care."

Born in Zagreb, Croatia, Dr. Hricak earned her medical degree in 1970 from the University of Zagreb. She completed her internship and began her residency at Hospital M. Stojanovic, also in Zagreb, and came to the United States in 1972. In 1977, she completed her radiology residency at St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital in Pontiac, Mich., followed by a fellowship in computed tomography and ultrasound at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where she subsequently became a senior staff member. Dr. Hricak received her Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden in 1992.

Dr. Hricak began her academic appointments in 1979 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Mich. From 1982 to 2000, she was at the University of California, San Francisco, where she became a professor of radiology, urology, radiation oncology, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, as well as chief of the uroradiology section and subsequently the abdominal imaging section.

From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Hricak was a consultant to the editor of Radiology. She has authored or co-authored 20 books and over 135 book chapters, and has published over 400 original research reports, reviews and editorials.

Dr. Hricak is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the National Cancer Institute's Board of Scientific Advisors. She is the director of a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded research study on the use of MRI and MR spectroscopy for risk assessment in patients with prostate cancer. She also directs an NIH-funded international training program in molecular imaging for oncology.

In the course of her career, Dr. Hricak has received many awards, including the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award from the American Association for Women Radiologists, the Beclere medal of the International Society of Radiology and the gold medals of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and the Association of University Radiologists. She is an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and an honorary member of the British Institute of Radiology, the Croatian Academy of Science and Art, the German Radiological Society, the Austrian Roentgen Society and the Journées Françaises de Radiologie. In addition, she holds an honorary doctorate in medicine from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

A member of the RSNA Board of Directors since 2002, Dr. Hricak's Board portfolio has been as liaison of publications and communications. Prior to her appointment to the Board, Dr. Hricak was chair of RSNA's Public Information Advisors Board, a group of members that serve as resources to the media for scientific information presented at RSNA meetings and in its journals. She has also been a member of other RSNA public information committees.

Dr. Hricak will serve as president of RSNA in 2010.

Note: Copies of RSNA 2007 news releases and electronic images will be available online at RSNA.org/press07 beginning Monday, Nov. 26.

RSNA is an association of more than 41,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists committed to excellence in patient care through education and research. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill. (RSNA.org)