Richard Baron named Chairman of the Board for RSNA2

Richard Baron named Chairman of the Board for RSNA2

December 12, 2013

Richard L. Baron, MD, FACR, professor of radiology at the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences, has been named chairman of the Board of Directors of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), one of the world's largest specialty organizations with more than 55,000 members worldwide.

As chairman, Baron will support RSNA's missions and core values by "placing a priority on evaluating how RSNA's educational offerings are organized and accessed, given that lifelong learning and continuous, real-time education are now so essential to the radiology community," according to the Society.

"RSNA members and contributors produce a broad array of scientific and educational content that collectively provides an unmatched resource for the imaging community," Baron said. "We want to optimize how we capitalize on that resource to most effectively meet our members' needs."

Baron, 64, came to the University of Chicago from the University of Pittsburgh in 2002 when he was appointed chair of the Department of Radiology. He served in that role from 2002 to 2011 and as dean for clinical practice from 2011 to 2013.

He is a cum laude 1972 graduate of Yale University. He earned his medical degree in 1976 at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., where he was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

He completed his internship in internal medicine at Yale University, followed by a radiology residency and an abdominal-radiology fellowship at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of Washington, in Seattle, before going to Pittsburgh as a professor of radiology in 1990.

Baron has authored or co-authored 118 peer-reviewed scientific articles, one book, 49 book chapters and review articles, and numerous scientific and educational exhibits. He has presented hundreds of invited lectures. He has served on the editorial boards and as manuscript reviewer for multiple journals, including Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography, Liver Transplantation, Gastroenterology and European Radiology, and served as an associate editor of Radiology from 1991 to 1996.

During his career, Baron has been an active member of several medical societies and organizations, including the American College of Radiology, Washington State Radiology Society, and the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS). He has been a frequent guest examiner for the American Board of Radiology. He served on the Board of Directors of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center from 1997 to 2002 and on The Joint Commission Professional Technical Advisory Committee from 2007 to 2011.

Baron has been principal investigator on a dozen research projects and has earned research awards from numerous national radiology societies, especially in the area of diagnostic imaging of liver disease. The RSNA has presented him with two Magna Cum Laude Awards. The European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology awarded him an honorary fellowship in 2008. Major League Baseball and the Cooperstown Hall of Fame turned to Baron and the University of Chicago's Department of Radiology in 2003 to perform X-rays and CAT scans when questions were raised about the content of Sosa's record-breaking bats.