Historic Timeline

Radiology at the Mount Sinai Health System has a long history of making a difference for our patients. Our experience spans decades of breakthroughs in radiation. As early as 1900, we started using radiology, and today, we continue to offer you the most advanced diagnostic and treatment radiology services available. The following milestones outline Mount Sinai’s accomplishments in radiology.

2018 – The Mount Sinai Hospital achieved No. 20 ranking in National Institutes of Health funding for medical imaging research, a milestone that ensures more innovation in the 21st century.

2017 – Created a new Imaging Research Warehouse that integrated clinical imaging with electronic health records. This gave researchers direct access to a database of more than one million Mount Sinai Health System patients to provide coordinated care.

2013 – Our Radiology Department expanded and moved into the Hess Building with 25,000-square-feet and the latest in radiological equipment.

2010 – We became the first health system in the United States to use a new cardiac nuclear imaging system developed by GE Healthcare. The system drastically reduced imaging time as well as radiation exposure by using a cadmium zinc telluride-based high-speed, high-resolution camera.

1994 – Opened the Radiology Imaging Center equipped with four MRI scanners, two spiral CT scanners, three low-dose mammography machines, a breast biopsy unit, three ultrasound machines, two radiography/fluoroscopy units using low-dose, digital X-ray technology, and a chest X-ray unit.

1986 – Established a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) facility that brought MRI expertise into a centralized location.

1975 – Acquired our first CT scanner and established a new level of diagnostic excellence without injections or medications.

1961 – Bernard S. Wolf, MD, introduced the use of a barium pill (sometimes called Wolf pills) to detect minimal esophageal strictures.

1960 – John E. Moseley, MD, provided the first description of the “spinnaker sail” sign indicating a pneumomediastinum in the newborn, which helps in diagnosing infant conditions.

1943 – Dr. Moseley became one of the first African American physicians at Mount Sinai. 

1942 – Marcy Sussman, MD, and a multidisciplinary team developed one of the first rapid film changers for use in angiography.

1941 – Dr. Sussman and a multidisciplinary team performed the first angiographic demonstration of a coarctation of the aorta and its effect on the heart, which helps in diagnosis of heart conditions.

1939 – Dr. Sussman performed the first angiocardiogram to diagnose heart disease at Mount Sinai.

1937 – Columbia University established the requirement that its medical students had to participate in the Mount Sinai radiology internship to earn their degree of Doctor in Medical Sciences in Radiology. 

1929 – Mount Sinai surgeon, Moses Swick, MD, formulated uroselectan, a contrast substance that let us examine the urinary tract without cystoscopy and led to its use in the heart, vascular system, and brain.

1926 – Radiologist Arthur Bendick, MD, assisted Isidor C. Rubin, MD, of the Gynecology Department with his pioneering work in visualization of the uterus and the fallopian tubes, which helps in diagnosing gynecological conditions.

Installed an X-ray unit in the operating room that allowed surgeons to see the kidneys while removing kidney stones.

1923 – Leopold Jaches, MD, and Harry Wessler, MD, published Clinical Roentgenology of Diseases of the Chest, which was long considered the standard American work on chest radiology.

Established the first X-ray museum in New York City that shared learnings within and outside Mount Sinai.

1920 – Approved a one-year internship in radiology for medical students.

1901 – Walter Brickner, MD, became The Mount Sinai Hospital’s first radiolographist, or person trained to perform radiological exams.

1900 – The Mount Sinai Hospital purchased its first X-ray machine.

Eugene Eising, MD, took the Hospital’s first X-ray image.