George Washington University names radiology chair
The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences on Tuesday officially named Jocelyn Rapelyea, MD, as its permanent radiology chair.
She first joined the Washington, D.C., institution’s residency program in 1996 and later completed her breast imaging fellowship at GW. Rapelyea became a faculty member there after completing her training, eventually rising to the rank of professor in 2017.
She has served as interim chair of the department since March and will now continue leading its faculty and staff and guiding clinical care, education and research in a permanent capacity.
“[Dr. Rapelyea] has been an inspiring leader, strategist, and mentor in the department for many years, and her leadership over the past several months has provided stability and guidance for her faculty colleagues,” Barbara Lee Bass, MD, VP for health affairs and dean of the school of medicine, said in a statement Jan. 13.
Rapelyea officially took on the title in November, following in the footsteps of noted radiologist Robert Zeman, MD, who previously served as chair. She also is a past program director of the school’s radiology residency and has continued as co-coordinator of resident education in breast imaging. Rapelyea is a widely published author in scientific journals, with her research focused on breast imaging technologies for breast cancer detection.
As chair, Rapelyea will guide the department’s educational, research and clinical care missions. This will include overseeing practice sites across the Washington, D.C., region, including the GW Hospital, Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center, and research programs at GW. She also will work to develop and enhance the school’s analytics resources, focusing on “leveraging population health data for clinical purposes.”
“I am pleased to be leading such an important department with incredible faculty,” she said in the announcement.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.