DOI: 10.1148/radiol.2411062580
(Radiology 2006;241:325a-326.)
© RSNA, 2006
Mary Stuart Fisher, MD
Otha W. Linton, MSJ
Dr Mary Stuart Fisher, the mother figure of Philadelphia radiology, died on April 24, 2006, at the age of 83 years.
Dr Fisher was active in her faculty position at Temple University Medical School (Philadelphia, Pa) until the last 3 years of her life. For more than 50 years, she taught hundreds of residents and thousands of medical students about radiology at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital, the Philadelphia General Hospital, and the Temple University Medical School. She was a role model to many of the women among them.
Dr Fisher came into medicine at a time when women were accepted as students but not always as equals. She graduated first in her high school class in Binghamton, NY, first in her class at Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, Pa) and, as though to prove herself, first in her class at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (New York, NY) in 1948. She completed her internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and her radiology residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
After a fellowship with Groover, Christie, and Merritt (Washington, DC), a private group that maintained its own training programs, Dr Fisher accepted an offer at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital, a shared service for several medical schools. She taught students and residents from all of them. After 8 years, she came to the Philadelphia General Hospital, also a service shared by several medical schools. When the Philadelphia General Hospital closed in 1975, her former resident, head of diagnosis at Temple University, recruited her to the position where she spent the rest of her 50-year academic career.
Dr Fisher was a member of the American Medical Association, the Philadelphia County Medical Society, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Radiological Society of North America, the American College of Radiology, the Association of University Radiologists, the American Association of Women in Radiology, the Society of Thoracic Radiologists, and the Pennsylvania Radiological Society. She served as a consultant to the National Board of Medical Examiners.
Dr Fisher's bibliography contains some 50 papers and chapters. She received awards for teaching from Temple University, including the Golden Apple award, which was selected by medical students in 1990. She received the Honored Radiologist award from the Pennsylvania Radiological Society in 1985 and the Outstanding Educator award from the Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society in 1992. The same year, the American Association for Women Radiologists gave her the Marie Curie award, its highest recognition. The Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society renamed its annual Outstanding Educator award for her in 2006.
She is survived by her husband, George R. Fisher III; daughters, Miriam and Margaret; and sons, George and Stuart.
