On June 9, 2004 Victor Haughton was installed as the 42nd President of the American Society of Neuroradiology. In Vic, the ASNR has a leader who has devoted his professional life to maintaining excellence in clinical neuroradiology, as well as in the science of neuroimaging and its anatomic underpinnings. His presidency will stress the importance of funded research on neuroradiology’s future, and he will be addressing financial and political challenges facing our specialty.
Born in Connecticut but raised in what, at that time, was the rural environment of Long Island, Vic and his sister, Marcia, came to appreciate both the value of a strong education and the discipline that comes with learning. Their father (Victor, Jr.) was the headmaster and French teacher at Friends Academy, a private Quaker boarding school in Locust Valley, while his mother taught remedial reading at the same school. It was axiomatic that Vic could not get into trouble in high school with his father as the headmaster. Although Vic and his family were not Quakers themselves, Vic believes that his exposure to the beliefs of Quakers gave him insights into a religion which was far different from his own Episcopalian upbringing.
Vic compiled a strong high school record, lettered in football (although Vic emphasized a number of times that his father was a far better athlete), and entered Harvard in 1957. Crimson runs deep in the Haughton family, with Vic being a third-generation Harvard graduate, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father.
During his undergraduate days, Vic’s interests changed from chemistry to medicine, and as a result, following his graduation from Harvard, he entered Yale University Medical School. During his third year of medical school Vic met his wife-to-be, Kirsti Staib, a Norwegian citizen who, at that time, was working at the Gesell Institute of Child Psychiatry in New Haven. Kirsti and Vic were married in Oslo in 1965. Between his third and fourth years of medical school he was awarded an NIH trainee scholarship which allowed him to travel to Norway and study cardiac and pulmonary disease. Needless to say, with a Norwegian wife and a year of study in Norway, Vic became, and still remains, fluent in Norwegian.
Following a medical internship at Tufts New England Medical Center, Vic entered the Public Health Service and in true governmental fashion, after giving Vic three choices for duty location, in which he chose (1) San Francisco, (2) Honolulu, and (3) Portland, ME, the PHS assigned him to Galveston, TX. Then, 2 weeks before reporting for duty, fortune smiled and his orders were changed to San Francisco. Because of his interest in cardiac disease, Vic became involved in cardiac arrhythmia research, but he soon realized that cardiac imaging held the greatest interest for him (and that was when cardiac imaging was truly in its infancy). This change in his career objectives led Vic to enter the radiology residency at Peter Bret Brigham. During the first years of that residency he found neuroradiology to hold the greatest interest for him, so he spent his fourth year with Arthur Rosenbaum and Bob Kirkwood in the Section of Neuroradiology.
How Vic ended up in Milwaukee is similar in many ways to how most of us, by chance, end up practicing where we do. While vacationing on Cape Cod, Jim Youker, Chair at the Medical College of Wisconsin, gave Vic a call and asked him to visit and discuss the possibility of moving to Milwaukee. Being a solid Northeasterner and a Bostonian to boot, Vic saw little reason to move until a visit to MCW showed the looming possibilities for an academic career there. Good equipment, the third installed CT scanner in the United States, and a growing practice in neuroradiology convinced Vic that relocating to Milwaukee would be wise. In turn, he was Chief of Neuroradiology Research and then Chief of the Section of Neuroradiology at MCW. In 1998 Vic left MCW for a faculty position as Professor of Radiology at the University of Wisconsin, a move which allowed him to stay rooted in his home in Oconomowoc, WI.
In his spare time, Vic continues with many vigorous outdoor activities including downhill and cross country skiing, hiking and mountain biking. Vic and Kristi have three children: Signe, who works for Target Therapeutics in Turin, Italy; Karianne, a mother and nurse-practitioner who lives with her family in Arroyo Grande, CA; and Paul Victor, who lives in Marlboro, MA and works as a geographical expert for TJX.
Members of the radiology community and readers of the American Journal of Neuroradiology are aware of the many important contributions Vic has made in teaching, publications, and in research in neuroradiology. Overall Vic feels that his most important work has been in the anatomic-radiology correlations in the normal spine and in disk-degenerative diseases of the spine. Anyone who has read Vic’s work in this area or listened to his presentations on these subjects would agree most heartily that these have advanced our knowledge in one of the most common of human maladies—back pain. At the University of Wisconsin, Vic is now concentrating on two major areas of research: functional imaging of the brain (cortical activation) and functional imaging of the spine (dynamic imaging). Neuroradiology continues to be a source of enjoyment to Vic, because in his words, “the education never stops, there are always new areas to explore, and young physicians and physicists seek help to develop their new ideas.”
In looking back at his life, Vic unhesitatingly indicated that his mother and father were of great influence, and while outside the family, his high school teachers influenced him to achieve the most that he could. Interestingly, the time spent in Norway was highly prized by Vic because of that country’s culture, its structured society and the perspectives Norwegians bring to their daily lives.
During his presidency, Vic faces a number of challenges. The first will be the development of a business plan to best disburse the funds now in the ASNR Foundation in order to advance the practice of neuroradiology in both academic and private practice. The second will be increased ASNR involvement in reimbursement issues. These are critical areas for our society to address, and we have in Vic Haughton, a president capable of taking on these issues and dealing with them in a professional and effective manner.
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