October 30, 2003
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Dr. Robert E. Koehler has been appointed chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), effective November 1. Koehler was vice-chairman of the department before being named interim chairman last year.
In announcing his appointment, Dr. William B. Deal, dean of the School of Medicine at UAB, said, “We are pleased that we were able to find within our own faculty such a highly qualified person to lead this large department that is so integral to the quality of patient care and research at UAB. Bob Koehler’s credentials and long service to UAB will serve him well.”
Koehler, who joined UAB in 1982, said, “It is an honor and definitely a challenge to have the opportunity to lead this distinguished faculty. The talent and dedication of our radiology faculty have brought national recognition to UAB, especially for resident education and skilled, subspecialized service to patients. We will now work to further strengthen those areas and to grow the department’s research and extramural funding.”
The new chairman received his undergraduate degree in 1964 from Johns Hopkins University and his medical degree in 1968 from Cornell University Medical College. He was an exchange student in tropical medicine at the University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil before commencing two years of postdoctoral training in Internal Medicine at Barnes Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. From 1970 to 1972 Koehler served in the U.S. Public Health Service as an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. He then completed residency training in Diagnostic Radiology and fellowship training in Gastrointestinal Radiology at the University of California, San Francisco. After a brief period on the radiology faculty at UCSF, he moved back to St. Louis as assistant professor of radiology at Washington University, where he rose to associate professor in 1976. Koehler came to UAB as professor of radiology in 1982.
A Fellow in the American College of Radiology, he has published 85 peer-reviewed articles and 25 book chapters. His work for the American Board of Radiology was recognized with the board’s Distinguished Service Award. Last year he was named by UAB medical students as the Outstanding Faculty Lecturer in Radiology. Earlier this year, he received the Distinguished Faculty Award for resident teaching in Radiology for the second time.