September 3, 2004

Second Taveras fellow named

James Thrall, MD, chief of MGH Radiology, and Jack Wittenberg, MD, director of Graduate Radiologic Education at the MGH, along with the rest of the MGH Radiology Department, welcomed Cesar Fabricio Gonzalez, MD, as the second Taveras Visiting Fellow.

The J.M. Taveras Fellowship program was established two years ago in honor of the late Juan M. Taveras, MD, former chairman of MGH Radiology. Taveras established the Centro de Diagnostico Medicina Avanzada y Telemedicina (CEDIMAT), a state-of-the-art radiological facility in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, upon his retirement from the MGH. The fellowship was established in tribute to his hope of advancing health care in the Dominican Republic by developing world-class radiological care, regardless of patients' socioeconomic status.

"This is certainly one of the most exciting accomplishments I have ever had," says Gonzalez. "I will accept this opportunity with great dedication and responsibility. I can hardly wait to start my fellowship." Gonzalez graduated magna cum laude from the Pedro Henriquez National University School of Medicine. After a year-long internship in internal medicine at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York, Gonzalez returned to Santo Domingo for a three-year radiology residency.

Rosa Maria Alvarez, MD, the first Taveras Visiting Fellow, now has returned to Santo Domingo where she will assume a staff position at CEDIMAT specializing in musculoskeletal radiology. While at the MGH, Alvarez collaborated with Wittenberg to establish a new Teleradiology Distance Education Program with CEDIMAT. Using a specifically modified RSNA Medical Imaging Resource Center program, teaching cases are exchanged internationally between the MGH and CEDIMAT. The website for this program is at http://www.mghedurad.org.

From left, Thrall, Gonzalez, Alvarez and Wittenberg