Michael P. Recht, M.D. The Louis Marx Professor and Chairman, Department of Radiology, New York University School of Medicine
Dr. Recht received his MD, AOA, from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. He did his residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where he was chief resident and also completed an angio/interventional fellowship at Penn. This was followed by fellowships in MR at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and musculoskeletal radiology at UCSD. In addition, he spent 10 months doing MR research at Siemens in Erlangen Germany.
Finally finished with training, Dr. Recht joined the Cleveland Clinic in 1992 as a musculoskeletal radiologist. His research focused on MR imaging, particularly MR imaging of articular cartilage. More recently he has been focusing on the imaging of Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) of the hip and he has organized an interdepartmental FAI workgroup of radiologists and orthopedists to define optimal ways of imaging patients with suspected FAI.
Dr. Recht had a strong interest in the potential of entrepreneurial opportunities of an academic medical center and began developing a teleradiology service at the Cleveland Clinic in 1997. Over the next 11 years this service grew into the Department of eRadiology and Business Development and Dr. Recht was appointed the Chairman of this Department.
In 2008, Dr. Recht joined the NYU Langone Medical Center as the Louis Marx Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiology. Over the past two years, Dr. Recht, with his excellent leadership team in the NYU Department of Radiology, has been focused on realizing the multiple missions of an academic radiology department in a changing and less friendly economic and regulatory environment. Some of the major initiatives developed at NYU over the past two years have included: the clinical scientist program, the best in practice program, the implementation of a new radiology portal and PACS, and a departmental balanced scorecard and dashboard.
Dr. Recht is married to Wendy Sorin, a graduate of Penn Med (1983) and Wills Eye Hospital. They have three children; Brian, a 2010 graduate of Dartmouth, Hannah, who will graduate from Brown in 2011 and is planning a career in Medicine; and Allison, currently in the 9th grade.
A native of Pittsburgh, Dr. Recht is enjoying life in New York City, although he is still having a hard time dealing with the fact that he is often the only Steelers fan in the room at staff meetings.
- What was it like to leave Penn and join another major academic institution?
My years at Penn and in particular my time as a resident in the Radiology Department were the foundation for my future career. The staff at Penn Radiology during my medical school and residency was truly a collection of giants in the field of Radiology who passed on to me a true love for the field and an appreciation of how important a role imaging played in clinical care. As a medical student on the wards, whenever a patient presented with a complex clinical question, the standard response was: “Let’s go down to Radiology and find out what is really going on”. Whether it was Wally Miller Sr., Murray Dalinka, Bob Grossman, Igor Laufer, or others, everyone knew that was where help could be found. I am fortunate to have practiced at two other leading academic institutions: the Cleveland Clinic and now at NYU. One of my goals as Chairman at NYU is to make sure the residents and fellows who train at NYU have the same feeling and experiences about NYU as I was able to have during my time at Penn.
- As a leader in radiology, what do you perceive the future of radiology to be?
I think we have been fortunate to have experienced a tremendous period of growth, innovation, and prosperity in radiology over the past 20 years. There is no doubt that the next 20 years will present us with difficult challenges. Although there is widespread debate and confusion over the future of healthcare in the country, one thing almost everyone agrees with is that imaging and in particular advanced imaging (MR, CT, Pet-CT, and MR-Pet) will be a target of health care reform and decreasing reimbursement. In addition, as imaging continues to play an even more central role in patient care, “turf” battles with other clinical services are certain to occur.
- Given these challenges do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about the future of radiology, particularly academic radiology?
I feel very optimistic about the future of radiology, particularly academic radiology. To paraphrase a popular saying “where some see obstacles, others see challenges and yet others see opportunities.” I see this as a time of great opportunities for academic radiology. Radiology needs to demonstrate both the value of imaging in impacting patient care and in decreasing overall health care costs by taking advantage of this value. I believe that academic departments are uniquely positioned to do this and need to take the lead.
In addition, I believe that declining reimbursement demands that radiology departments develop new models of organization and operation. To this end, at NYU we have formed an integrated team of radiology staff members including faculty, technologists and administrators to develop a departmental strategy map based on the balanced scorecard model. The team has also created a dashboard of key performance indicators measuring success in five strategic areas: patient-centric imaging, new models of education, translational research, the creation of an empowering, productive and pleasant work environment, and the development of new models of integration with our referring clinicians.
- What do you do for fun?
First, I am fortunate that I continue to love what I do, so that I consider my daily activities fun. However, in non work time I enjoy spending time with my family, traveling (we are very excited about a planned safari this summer), following sports (particularly my home teams), and trying to play golf.
