Tóm tắt

I first rotated on Professor Josef Rösch’s “angiography” service at the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health Sciences University, OHSU) as a radiology resident 40 years ago. Following this rotation, Josef invited me to join him on the faculty upon completion of my residency. Thus began a 40-year friend ship during which Josef was my mentor, teacher, colleague, and close friend. He even assumed a “father figure” role when my own father passed away shortly after we began working together. I learned a tremendous amount about the art of angiography and interventional radiology from Professor Rösch, including the properties of various catheter materi als and guidewires and the technical details of steam-shaping of catheters, creation of catheter side holes, and coronary, visceral, and pulmonary arterial catheteriza tion. Perhaps most importantly, he taught me always to look for an “interventional solution” to the clinical problem at hand. However, Josef was not only the ideal person to teach me angiography and interventional radiology. By observing his behavior and his interactions with others, I learned a great deal about life. Josef often said that “if you want to learn about a subject, write a paper on it. If you really want to learn a lot about a subject, write a book on it.” And write he did! He was the fi rst author or co-author of 495 published scientifi c papers, book chap ters, and books. Josef had an extremely strong work ethic. His work was his life. During the 40 years we worked together, I reviewed all of Professor Rösch’s manuscripts and translated his “Czech-English” into publishable English. Josef spent the last year of his life writing his autobiography, An Interventional Odyssey: The Story of My Life and Work . He fi nished the manuscript shortly before he passed away. Josef asked me to shepherd it through the publishing process. I have gladly done this. Also, I am grateful to Mrs. Corinna Hauser, clinical medical editor at Springer, for all of her advice. This autobiography is the chronicle of a giant in interventional radiology who conceived and developed many procedures, techniques, and tools used in inter ventional radiology today. It is also the story of an individual who was required to make the diffi cult decision to defect from his native country, Czechoslovakia, to live in the United States. In addition, this book details the many signifi cant medical contributions made by Professor Rösch that have improved the lives of vi millions of patients and his persistent and successful efforts to establish the Dotter Interventional Institute, the fi rst independent, free-standing academic interven tional radiology department. Despite all of his successes and achievements, Professor Rösch had a gentleness and quiet dignity. His kindness was evident to all. Josef Rösch was a great man, but not all great men are wonderful human beings. Josef, however, was both.