Radiologist

A parent told her “Be the best in the world or don’t bother.” She had difficulty reading, reflected in poor school grades. At first, her professional colleagues disagreed with her findings. But she persisted and achieved both respect and career satisfaction. So, you can too!

FAMILY BACKGROUND

BB’s father was an immunologist, who later shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine for findings related to genetics. Her mother was a homemaker. BB was an only child. 

The family was an ‘oasis’ for intellectually interesting, adult friends of BB’s parents. She was often asked to play the flute at dinner parties, where guests included classical musicians and scientists. 

FIRST CHALLENGE – PARENT’S (UNREALISTICALLY) HIGH EXPECTATIONS

BB’s father once told her that “whatever you end up doing, if you’re not the best in the world, there’s no point in doing it. So, I grew up with that kind of background.” 

While BB kept her father’s high – and unrealistic – expectations in mind, fortunately she was never crushed by the weight of those words. Instead, she just used those words to remind herself to always keep her standards high. 

EDUCATION

BB attended a private, all-girls school in a large city. Despite its educational focus and resources, BB’s dyslexia was undiagnosed when she was young, so she struggled academically until properly diagnosed. 

SECOND CHALLENGE – DYSLEXIA

Editor’s note re dyslexia: A disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one’s age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may occur in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, ‘sounding out” words in the head, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads. The difficulties are involuntary; people with this disorder have a normal desire to learn. Treatment includes adjusting teaching methods and/or for the individual involved, using a variety of learning strategies. 

BB self-taught herself to cope with her dyslexia by adopting several strategies: 

1. When she received a school assignment, she would work to complete it as soon as possible. “This habit keeps me organized and prevents me from taking on more tasks than I know I can do,” she said. 
2. She listened carefully in class, while watching for possible visual aids. Books with a lot of graphs, images and charts can be very helpful. (Determining to focus on available pictures turned out to be an amazing advantage later, when BB was studying to be a radiologist; during a medical school rotation through various medical specialties, a senior radiologist noted that even from the back of a room, BB could spot a small abnormality in an image. He told her that “You have a gift that I’ve never seen (in any student) before.”
3. BB developed self-confidence in her ability to learn, using her personal strategies. “Pictures just speak to me. I can look at a picture and I can see the pattern. I can see things that nobody else can see.”
4. Willing to push herself academically despite risking failure, BB enrolled in the popular Evelyn Wood speed reading course, twice, to no avail. (She cashed in on the money-back guarantee both times.) Later, she took the Medical College Admission Test (“MCAT”). Her predictably poor score became moot when the results were lost.

CAREER PATH CHOSEN, THEN SLIGHTLY ALTERED

After graduating from college, at first BB had no career direction but she had always been comfortable around the world of science, which she thought could suit her ability to study an issue in her own time and work with people on a one-on-one basis. 

BB’s problem dealing with standard aptitude tests requiring rapid reading skills was met by eventually finding a respected medical school which didn’t require the MCAT test. Her dyslexia, she found, did not hamper her medical studies because she devoted herself to attending all classes, listening, watching, and seeking books with many graphs, images, and charts. 

Her first choice of a narrow career path was to be a surgeon, but she found the field unwelcoming to women and decided to ‘play to my strength’ meaning, matching her skill at focusing on images, with the medical specialty where that would be most relevant: radiology. 

Editor’s note: Radiology is the science dealing with X-rays and other high-energy radiation, especially the use of such radiation for the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Radiography includes all imaging modalities, such as ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging (‘MRI’), computed tomography (‘CT’), fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine, including positron emission tomography (‘PET’). Interventional radiology is the performance of usually minimally invasive medical procedures with the guidance of imaging technologies such as those mentioned above.

Radiologists must be college and medical school graduates, who then complete appropriate post-graduate training: one year of internship and four years of residency training. After residency, radiologists may pursue one or two years of additional specialty fellowship training. The American Board of Radiology administers professional certification in Diagnostic Radiology, Radiation Oncology and Medical Physics as well as subspecialty certification in neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, pediatric radiology, and vascular and interventional radiology. Certification may also be obtained from the American Osteopathic Board of Radiology. Successfully passing any of those tests means that the radiologist is “Board Certified.”

When BB completed her radiology training, she chose to pursue the sub-specialty of ultrasound because at the time, radiation was deemed unsafe to be around for extended periods of time and she wanted to have children, without exposing them to radiation during her pregnancy. 

THIRD CHALLENGE – DISRESPECTED WITHIN HER (MEDICAL) PROFESSION

While utilizing ultrasound images to detect congenital anomalies and gynecological disorders, BB discovered that a thickening of a patch of skin at the back of the fetus’s neck, known as the nuchal fold, was associated with Down syndrome and other chromosomal disorders. Before BB conducted her research, screening for birth defects was generally limited to women 35 and older, thought to be at greatest risk, conducted by amniocentesis, an invasive procedure that in a small number of cases can cause miscarriage or other physical harms. 

BB’s first published medical articles suggesting ultrasound’s potential for offering an effective, less invasive form of fetal screening – available to women of any age – were published in 1985. They were not warmly received. “I was almost booed off the stage at several national meetings, and papers emerged discrediting my research and me. I was devastated but that much more determined to prevail because I knew I was right.”

CAREER SATISFACTION

BB’s scientific determination was eventually vindicated: As ultrasound became a routine part of prenatal care, so did measuring the thickness of the nuchal fold. That screening, which is now typically augmented by blood tests, was based on BB’s earlier research. 

Later in her medical career, BB made scientific advances in the development of fetal hearing. She also shifted her focus to gynecological imaging and conditions such as endometriosis, pelvic pain, and ovarian cancer. In her four-decade career, BB saw tens of thousands of patients while publishing hundreds of journal articles and several books. She also trained legions of doctors.

BB has been called a “trailblazer” in using ultrasound in the service of women’s reproductive health – in most instances to reassure expectant mothers. Said one of BB’s medical disciples: “Her diagnostic ability was second to none.” 

Editor’s note: Coincidentally, being ‘second to none’ could reasonably be the same as ‘being the best in the world’ which would thus fulfill BB’s father’s high expectations. While setting such a parental goal for a child might crush the child’s determination to succeed, assuming that ‘best in the world’ was an impossible goal, BB’s story is one good example that high standards can be a positive and not a negative influence on one’s life and career.