Radiology community mourns the loss of Bruce Hillman, MD
The radiology community is mourning the loss of noted physician Bruce J. Hillman, MD, 76, who died on Jan. 9 at Kitty Askins Hospice Center in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
A towering figure in the field, Dr. Hillman was the founding editor for the Journal of the American College of Radiology and Academic Radiology. He shared hundreds of talks, including 40 distinguished or named lectureships, and authored over 400 publications, according to a tribute published by the University of Virginia.
Dr. Hillman was appointed as chair of UVA’s Department of Radiology in 1992 and held the title until 2003. During that time, he played a key role in developing the university’s first outpatient imaging center and oversaw its transition away from film-based imaging. He earned many honors during his decades-long career, including gold medals from the Radiological Society of North America and American College of Radiology, with the latter also bestowing him with its Luminary Leadership Award in 2015.
Radiologists shared their remembrances on social media and in the comments following the obituary.
“Bruce guided me early in my career and gave me confidence to move in many directions,” wrote C. Douglas Phillips, MD, a former professor and director of neuroradiology at UVA. “He was a far-sighted individual who could grasp the second and third steps in a process. His acceptance meant a lot to me. His vision for our department was well ahead of its time. I will miss him.”
“He was one of the giants in radiology and will always be remembered,” wrote Sally Herschorn, MD.
Dr. Hillman was born in 1947 and raised in Miami Beach, Florida, with his brother, Jeff. His father managed a small family-owned hotel in South Beach prior to his death at age 51. After his passing, Dr. Hillman’s mother returned to teaching kindergarten while the future radiologist (12 at the time) took part-time jobs bagging groceries, sweeping at beachfront hotels, and grinding welds for a piping contractor. Dr. Hillman graduated from Princeton in 1965, earned his medical degree at the University of Rochester in 1973, and trained in radiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston (now part of Brigham and Women’s) and Harvard.
He eventually joined the University of Arizona, serving as section chief of genital urinary radiology, professor, and chair of radiology. After 14 years in Arizona, he relocated to Virginia where he stayed for a dozen years. Dr. Hillman also was president of five radiological societies, recipient of lifetime achievement awards from six imaging organizations, and authored three creative nonfiction books. He served on the ACR Board of Chancellors for 19 years and published influential research relating to physician self-referrals.
In a 2020 interview for the Radiology Leadership Institute, he recounted why starting the American College of Radiology Imaging Network, a clinical trials cooperative group, was one the fondest parts of his career.
“Well, it was the Titans. It was the feeling that we were on a mission from God. We were finally going to bring science to radiology research, and everybody felt that way,” Dr. Hillman said. “We had a nurses committee, and we had a research associates committee, and they were heavily invested in this whole thing. And in my nine years as chair, we spent $200 million on clinical trials and over half of that went to individual departments. So, we were not only building clinical trials, we were building infrastructure that had never existed before. We built a cadre of researchers who understood how to do high-quality clinical research, again, that had never existed in this specialty.”
Dr. Hillman’s work with ACRIN eventually led to him becoming founding editor of the Journal of the American College of Radiology in 2004. He recounted a conversation at RSNA with noted radiologist Harvey Neiman, MD. Dr. Hillman balked at the idea at first, contending that he already had a “good job” and the “world of radiology does not need another journal.” But he came around eventually as he struggled with the stress of managing the department and its people.
“Two or three weeks later, I'd been thinking it through the whole time in dull or lazy moments and realized I didn't have a good job [at UVA]. I loved ACRIN,” he said. “…So I called Harvey back and I said, ‘Well, have you hired an editor yet?’" He said, ‘No. But you could have this day to interview for it.’ I didn't realize it would be a competition. He made it sound like he would just name me editor. But it was a competition, and they eventually chose me, and I've got to say, it was a wonderful decision. When I was able to tell the dean I was quitting, when I was able to tell the practice plan I was getting out, it was just the happiest day of my life. I could feel literally the gloom lifting from my shoulders.”
“Saved my life. I have no doubt that it saved my life. I used to go home and just grind and grind over and over,” he added later.
At the time of the 2020 interview, he had been married to his wife, Pam, for eight years, living in Wake Forest, North Carolina. His only son, Aaron, lived in Stowe, Massachusetts, at the time and worked in marketing for GE. Dr. Hillman was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2008 and underwent deep brain stimulation surgery for increasingly rapid deterioration in function in May 2019. Besides creative writing, his hobbies included fly-fishing and golf, which became more challenging as his disease progressed.
Dr. Hillman retired from radiology on Jan. 1, 2019, but afterward continued to serve as a professor emeritus of radiology at the University of Virginia (via telecommuting) and adjunct professor of radiology at Duke.
“His drive to succeed and tenacity to achieve difficult things were traits that laid the foundation for his long and illustrious career,” the university said in its announcement. “UVA’s Department of Radiology and Medical Imaging, the literary world, and the community of radiology are all better off due to Dr. Hillman.”
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.