The primary mission of the Department of Radiology is to provide state-of-the art diagnostic and interventional therapeutic radiology and nuclear medicine services in a timely, high quality, and cost-effective manner for the benefit of all of the patients at Mount Sinai. This mission has evolved in response to the remarkable technical and clinical advances that have been made over the past two decades. It requires that we continually reassess all aspects of our practice to meet the ever-increasing imaging demands that are intrinsic to a tertiary-care medical center.
An equally important mission is to train the next generation of diagnostic and interventional radiologists so that they can achieve clinical excellence as well as perform high quality and innovative research. The department also serves as an authoritative educational and consultative resource for all the practitioners at Mount Sinai in the appropriate application of imaging procedures.
The Department of Radiology continues to expand its clinical, educational, and research programs and services under the leadership of Burton P. Drayer, M.D., the Dr. Charles M. and Marilyn Newman Professor and Chairman. Dr. Drayer is a nationally recognized authority on the use of Computer Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for the diagnosis of diseases of the brain and spine. He came to Mount Sinai in 1995 from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ, where he served as Chair of the Division of Neuroimaging, Director of MRI, and Radiologist-in-Chief at St. Joseph's Hospital/Barrow Neurological Institute. He was Associate Professor and then Professor of Radiology at Duke University from 1979 to 1985. Dr. Drayer is a past President of the American Society of Neuroradiology (ASNR) and presently Chairman of the Board of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Dr. Drayer's clinical research interests focus on the normal aging brain and the use of innovative imaging techniques for the early detection of Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and brain infarction (stroke). The author of more than 200 publications, he has also written extensively on improving diagnostic specificity in multiple sclerosis and primary brain tumors. Among the superb departmental Section Chiefs are national and international leaders in Neuroradiology (Thomas Naidich, M.D.), ENT Radiology (Peter Som, M.D.), Interventional Radiology (Joshua Weintraub, M.D.), Cardiovascular MRI (Zahi Fayad, Ph.D.), and PET-CT (Josef Machac, M.D., and Lale Kostakoglu, M.D.).
With the opening of the state-of-the-art Radiology Imaging Center in the summer of 1994, Mount Sinai became New York City's pre-eminent source for comprehensive radiologic services. This ambulatory facility provides a full range of technologically advanced diagnostic capabilities - high field 1.5 and 3.0 Tesla MRI, multiple slice CT scanners, sophisticated PET-CT, digital mammography, advanced ultrasound and interventional angiographic procedures, and digital conventional radiography - in a single location. The Center has enhanced the delivery of patient care, as well as provided the requisite tools to train tomorrow's radiologists and facilitate imaging research. The Radiology faculty now performs over 90,000 outpatient imaging exams per year in this facility in addition to the over 200,000 inpatient studies done at The Mount Sinai Hospital. The Department of Radiology is fully digital with image management, interpretation, distribution, and archival performed using RIS/PACS for 100% of cases. In addition, all reports are dictated using voice recognition technology.
Dr. Drayer will continue to improve programs to maintain a high quality, service-oriented, user-friendly Radiology Department for today and into the future. We will work closely with the new Translational Molecular Imaging Institute (TMII) to greatly expand our research activities in molecular imaging, imaging physics and engineering, and biomathematics and image processing. The Department of Radiology will also remain committed to the training of medical students, residents, fellows, and community physicians and will constantly re-evaluate our training methods to make certain that we prepare them for the challenging world of health care.
