Melvin Clouse (1934-2024) was an American radiologist, pioneer of cardiovascular interventional radiology, and a great leader who popularized his discipline, adapting it to modern times.

Born in the small town of Vinita, Oklahoma, his vocation was inspired by the doctor who treated him after he suffered an accident on his family's farm, helping him retain two fingers on his injured hand when he was 4 years old. 

He left his home state to attend high school at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. During his college years, he was awarded a summer research fellowship at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, Long Island, New York, which helped shape his research career.

After his internship at Philadelphia General Hospital (1960-1961), he completed his radiology fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, then spent a year as a clinical fellow at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington.  He returned to Mass General and later to New England Deaconess, which merged with Beth Israel in 1969, rising to department head of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 1975, a position he held until 1997.

During the merger of these two hospitals, his leadership skills and tireless energy contributed greatly to the solid integration of the two hospitals. He established a national training program in oncology research, as well as a fellowship in interventional treatments, body imaging and nuclear medicine.

With an innovative mentality, already during his time as a resident at Mass General, he developed a new method for performing lymphangiography, subsequently contributing to the creation of new approaches in the treatment of liver disease, developing protocols for percutaneous treatment of liver tumors.

Between 1985 and 1991, thanks to several grants from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Clouse developed the principles of magnetic resonance spectroscopy of liver transplants, and, in 2006, he was involved in the development of coronary angiography by computed tomography, thus pioneering non-invasive imaging of the heart.

Dr. Clouse's career spans more than half a century, with more than 235 published articles, with special reference to the introduction of new techniques in diagnosis and interventionism.  Endowed with an excellent talent for identifying and recruiting brilliant young radiologists and researchers, he tutored the apprenticeship of young talents from all five continents.

A Fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology, the American College of Radiology, the American Heart Association, and the Society of Cardiac Computed Tomography, in 2017 he was named Chair of Harvard Medical School, creating a professorship in his name.

He was president of the New England Roentgen Ray Society, and also held various leadership positions in the Radiological Society of North America.

Author:
Dr. Luis Humberto Ros