Barbara L Carter, MD, FACR – 1999 Alice Ettinger Awardee

Author, sailor

Academic radiology is a most rewarding career, especially if one can be at the right time in the right place. As a young, enthusiastic radiologist, I tried keeping up with the newer techniques such as introducing CO2 into the retroperitoneum for the evaluation of the adrenal glands, injecting CO2 into the peritoneal cavity for the visualization of the uterus and ovaries, and IV administration of CO2 in detecting pericardial fluid, etc.

When CT scanning was introduced, I was given the opportunity to be one of the early body scanners, Doing a CT scan on patients prior to an autopsy made it possible to understand what we were looking at. During this evaluation, some hazards occurred - such as keeping the body in the office overnight for further study the next day, My colleague, Steven Hammerschlag, a neuroradiologist was dismayed when the night watchman found it and made an emergency call to the hospital administrator who was attending a meeting in Chicago. This caused a bit of an uproar. Considerable anxiety was created when we were correlating body images with frozen sections made by our anatomist. These sections were x-rayed in our department across the street, which were conveyed on trays obtained from the dinning room. Potholes in the street caused a spillage of the frozen sections which was of concern because traffic was going by - possibly conveying a policeman or a reporter. It was not prudent at that time to be throwing body sections into the street. Despite these an other incidents it was a fascinating time to actually see the pancreas, liver, kidneys, uterus, ovaries, heart chambers, brain, even ossicles in the middle ear. It was a fascinating, exciting time and a unique opportunity to teach residents and students and to be able to share all of the findings with our colleagues here in Boston and around the country. I was the able to present our findings to ENT radiologists in Europe at an international meeting, many of whom had not heard about or knew very little about CT scanning. What a wonderful specialty - Radiology!

Barbara L Carter in 1947	Barbara L Carter

Barbara L. Carter MD, FACR is Professor of Radiology and Otolaryngology at Tufts University College of Medicine and Chief of ENT Radiology at Tufts-New England Medical Center