December 5 , 2003

Continuing a legacy: Juan M. Taveras Visiting Fellow named

James Thrall, MD, chief of MGH Radiology, and his colleagues recently welcomed Rosa Alvarez, MD, as the first Juan M. Taveras Visiting Fellow at the MGH. The fellowship program was named in honor of the late Juan M. Taveras, MD, who was the former chair of MGH Radiology.

Alvarez recently completed a three-year residency in radiology at the Centro de Diagnostico, Medicina Avanzada y Telemedicina (CEDIMAT) in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic. As a visiting fellow, she is in the fourth-year residential program at the MGH, specializing in musculoskeletal radiology, where she is refining her diagnostic skills and learning new interventional techniques that are not yet available in the Dominican Republic.

Under the supervision of Jack Wittenberg, MD, director of Graduate Radiology Education, Alvarez also is contributing to the newly established Teleradiology Distance Education Program. Each day, patient histories and images from two anonymous cases are sent, giving the residents at CEDIMAT an opportunity for both self-education and self-assessment of their diagnostic skills.

Left, Thrall, Alvarez and Wittenberg

A native of the Dominican Republic, Taveras had a long-held dream to support medical care in Latin America, especially in his own country. Upon his retirement from the MGH, he set up the Juan M. Taveras Foundation for the Advancement of Radiology in Latin America and, with its support, founded CEDIMAT to bring world-class radiological care to the people of the Dominican Republic, regardless of their ability to pay. The fundraising activities of the foundation provide resources for
more than 25 percent of impoverished patients cared for by CEDIMAT.

Taveras maintained a close relationship with the MGH and established annual visits for MGH radiologists to CEDIMAT advising on technologic and diagnostic updates and supervising the introduction of new interventional procedures. Members of the CEDIMAT staff also come to the MGH to learn about administrative methodology and new patient care protocols, including the most recent advances in interventional procedures. After Taveras died two years ago, MGH Radiology created the Juan M. Taveras Visiting Fellowship to support the work of an outstanding graduating resident who hails from the Dominican Republic.