{"id":249096,"date":"2026-07-30T11:30:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T15:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=249096"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:57:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:57:42","slug":"radiology-pioneer-still-teaching-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2026\/07\/radiology-pioneer-still-teaching-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Radiology Pioneer Still Teaching at 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Harold Moskowitz is 90, losing his vision, and no longer drawing a salary, but, motivated by a \u201clove of teaching,\u201d he still shows up to UConn Health a couple times a week to mentor trainees.<\/p>\n

A professor emeritus since his retirement in 2016, Moskowitz primarily gives lectures for students and first-year radiology residents. His time at the UConn School of Medicine goes back to 1969, when he joined the faculty part-time while building the radiology department at Mount Sinai Hospital in Hartford.<\/p>\n

\"Group<\/a>
From the UConn Health Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Therapeutics, Dr. Leo Wolanksy (front left), Dr. Michael Baldwin, interim chair (back left) Dr. Timothy Herbst (back right), and Dr. Harold Moskowitz (front right) mentor residents (from center left) Dr. Guy Gechtman, Dr. Nadav Mortman, and Dr. Aakash Jain. (Tina Encarnacion\/ UConn Health photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always enjoyed working with medical students and residents, trying to teach the things that I\u2019ve learned during my career,\u201d Moskowitz says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s super passionate about radiology and teaching and medicine, and he has such an amazing range of experiences in radiology,\u201d says Dr. Aakash Jain, who recently completed his first year of residency. \u201cHe helped pioneer a lot of the foundational parts of radiology and has a lot of interesting stories about that. And then obviously, clinically, he\u2019s seen everything and pretty much done everything. He\u2019s a really great resource.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moskowitz estimates he\u2019s read more than 100,000 X-rays.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was one of the early angiographers,\u201d Moskowitz says. \u201cI was one of the early people who did mammography, and we\u2019ve saved thousands of people\u2019s lives, and we started the Society of Breast Imaging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, four decades later, the Society of Breast Imaging has more than 4,200 members and its biannual meeting draws radiologists from around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s really focused on teaching us the fundamentals of radiology,\u201d says Dr. Guy Gechtman, also now in his second year of residency. \u201cJust to hear his perspective on his 60-year-long career in radiology, it\u2019s been great, all the wealth of knowledge and experience that he has to share with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Harold Moskowitz, UConn School of Medicine professor emeritus or radiology, shows a collection of radiology artifacts he donated to UConn Health. (Tina Encarnacion\/ UConn Health photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moskowitz grew up in New York City and graduated from the SUNY Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn in 1959. He completed a one-year internship at what was then the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and a four-year radiology residency at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He served two years as a medical officer the U.S. Army, stationed on the Japanese island of Okinawa. He then returned to Downstate as a member of the faculty, where he would run the angiography lab at both its new university hospital and nearby Kings County Hospital, from 1966 to 1969.<\/p>\n

\u201cRadiology is a driver; because of its ability to look inside the human body, it has a unique perspective, and its growth has been incredible, and the technology is so incredible now,\u201d Moskowitz says. \u201cWhen I started in radiology, the things we can do today are beyond even my wildest expectations what the future world holds.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he notes, with the advances in technology came a diminishing of the interpersonal relationship between physician and patient, especially over the last 10 years, with the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating that trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s resident sits in front of a computer screen and dictates,\u201d Moskowitz says. \u201cWhen I was training, we often would go out and look and talk to and interview the patient and even potentially examine them to decide what X-ray tests we were going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Harold Moskowitz\u2019s history at UConn Health goes back to a three-year stint as a part-time faculty member in 1969. Moskowitz, pictured here in 2007, returned to join the faculty full-time in 2000. (Janine Gelineau\/UConn Health Center Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Moskowitz left the UConn School of Medicine faculty in 1972; he returned full-time in 2000, and soon he would establish radiology electives, create a summer radiology rotation for rising second-year students, and, perhaps most noteworthy, retool a struggling radiology residency program.<\/p>\n

Dr. Nadav Mortman \u201922 MD, a fourth-year resident, recalls his early impression during his first year in the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is this retired attending who wants to use his free time to come here and teach, and immediately you understand it\u2019s because he\u2019s extremely passionate about radiology, and teaching, and he cares about the future of radiology,\u201d Mortman says. \u201cHe teaches not just how to make the diagnosis, but to look at the patient behind the image, as how you would want someone to look at your own family member.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the future of radiology, Moskowitz says, \u201cWhen I started in 1960, we were hand-developing our own X-rays, and now and image is all automated, it\u2019s all on computers, it all can be transmitted anywhere around the world. And artificial intelligence is going to change the whole thing. I think it\u2019s going to take away a lot of the reading from the doctors. AI is going to read the X-rays. It\u2019ll be interesting to see what happens. I hope I\u2019m around to see it. But even now, a significant percentage of X-rays are looked at by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moskowitz and his wife, Jan, live in West Hartford, in the house they bought when they moved to Connecticut in 1969. She drives him to UConn Health so he can continue to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was my calling right from the beginning,\u201d Moskowtiz says. \u201cMy wife says that I\u2019m one of the very fortunate people on this earth, because I love my job. I\u2019ve always loved it. I never wanted to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Moskowitz published his autobiography, \u201cBehind the X-Ray: A Radiologist\u2019s Journey,\u201d available on Amazon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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