Evens, Ronald G., Vertical File

Dr. Ronald Evens (b.1939) dedicated close to the entirety of his career to Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and to the hospitals of its medical campus. He graduated from Washington University with an A.B. in Economics in 1961, and from WUSM in 1964. Following an internship at Barnes Hospital, he went on to become Chief Resident at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) in 1969, and then trained for two years as a research associate at the Laboratory of Clinical Endocrinology at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Evens returned to St. Louis to study at Washington University in 1970 as the recipient of an Advanced Academic Fellowship from the Picker Foundation and National Academy of Sciences. He was named Director of MIR, Chairman of the WUSM Department of Radiology, and Radiologist-in-Chief at Barnes Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital in 1971. He was also named the first Elizabeth E. Mallinckrodt Professor of Radiology in 1972. Evens would go on to serve in a number of other leadership roles at Washington University and on the medical campus, including, but not limited to, President of St. Louis Children's Hospital (1985-1988), President of Barnes-Jewish Hospital (1999-2005), and Vice Chancellor for Financial Affairs at Washington University (1988-1990). Evens was also active in a number of professional societies. Of these professional societies, he was named president of the Missouri Radiological Society in 1977, of the Society of Chairmen of Academic Radiology Departments in 1979, of the American Roentgen Ray Society in 1988, and of the American College of Radiology in 1998.

During Ronald Evens' tenure as director of MIR, which lasted up until his appointment as Barnes-Jewish Hospital president in 1999, the institution grew from a regional leader in its field to one of national prominence. MIR became one of the first institutions in the county to have a CAT (later shortened to CT) scanner installed, and helped to develop the system for clinical use. Evens also oversaw the installation of the first computer in use at MIR to handle patient billing and registration. Under Evens' leadership, MIR grew to become one of the five largest radiological departments in the world, and following the Barnes and Jewish Hospitals merger in 1996, MIR possessed the largest radiological residency program in the country.