Three senior European radiologists have hailed the life and career of the late Dr. Alexander Margulis in an obituary published online on 26 October in European Radiology.
Margulis, who passed away on 7 September at the age of 97 following a long and distinguished career in academic radiology in the U.S., was born in Belgrade in 1921. He was a medical student when Germany invaded the former Yugoslavia in 1941 and later emigrated to the U.S. in 1944 when he and his family escaped on a refugee boat from Italy. In the U.S., Margulis trained in radiology and was later appointed chair of radiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1963.
He held that post for 26 years, a tenure during which UCSF became the "Mecca of modern radiology worldwide," said Dr. Boris Brkljacic of the University of Zagreb in Croatia, Dr. Yves Menu of UPMC Sorbonne Universités in Paris, and Dr. Maximillian Reiser of Ludwig Maximillian University Hospital in Munich, Germany.
Although he became a U.S. citizen shortly after emigrating, Margulis always remained closely connected in his heart to Europe, the authors noted. He was also a dear friend, knowledgeable advisor, and altruistic mentor for innumerable European radiologists, they said in the obituary.
In addition, Margulis and his wife, radiologist Dr. Hedvig Hricak, greatly supported the ECR and the European Society of Radiology for many years, according to the authors. He was also bestowed the ECR gold medal in 1993 in recognition of his outstanding merits and achievements.
"We will dearly miss Alexander R. Margulis as a brilliant mastermind of our discipline and as a true friend, and will forever keep him in grateful memory," they wrote.
