AJR 2000; 174:1348
© American Roentgen Ray Society
Heinz Stephen Weens, 1912-1999
William J. Casarella
Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta, GA 30322
One of the great teachers and researchers in American radiology passed away
September 13, 1999. Known to a few as Heinz but to almost everyone in Atlanta
radiology as Dr. Weens, he was chairman of the Department of Radiology at
Emory University from 1947 to
1981.
A great teacher, clinician, scholar, and investigator, Dr. Weens was born
in Berlin in 1912. He trained in medicine at the Universities of Berlin,
Heidelberg, and Berne, where he received his M.D. degree in 1937. He moved to
Chicago for a medical internship in 1938 on the eve of the Holocaust and then
moved to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta for another year of training. The
Piedmont radiologist, Hillyer Rudsill, interested him in a career in
radiology.
Dr. Weens became the first radiology resident at Grady Memorial Hospital in
Atlanta. By 1941, the faculty had left Grady and Piedmont for either private
practice or the military, so Weens became responsible for the radiology
services at both these major hospitals. He subsequently completed his
residency in 1944 and acquired additional training at the Massachusetts
General and Peter Bent Brigham Hospitals in Boston. He started the new Emory
radiology training program in 1946. By 1947, he was a full professor and
chairman of the department.
Dr. Weens was an innovative investigator. In 1944, he was part of the team
that performed the first diagnostic cardiac catheterization and
angiocardiography. He pioneered 35-mm cineradiography. He described the
findings in aortic dissection and observed the nephrogram after contrast
injections. He pioneered the development of the rotating anode X-ray tube and
helped develop the first cobalt therapy machine. To make our specialty safer
for all of us, he quantified radiation exposure in diagnostic examinations and
improved the dose rate to patients and staff. Most of all, he was a wonderful
mentor and role model for an entire generation of radiology faculty and
trainees. He was someone that people turned to for advice and information. His
300 trainees are practicing radiologists throughout the United States. They
have all been enriched by his leadership.
He was a wonderful sensitive man with widespread interests in the arts,
travel, and nature. Most important, he was devoted to his family—his
wife Suzanne and his daughter Joan, a practicing oncologist in Atlanta.
We all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Dr. Weens. He founded modern
Atlanta radiology. As the first chairman at Emory, through his intellect and
industry, he established our specialty as a scientific discipline at Emory
University and throughout the Southeast.
As the second chairman of radiology at Emory, I can easily stand on the
shoulders of the giant, Heinz Stephen Weens, radiologist extraordinaire.
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