Dr Richard M Heller, Jr Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Radiological Sciences who established the practice of Pediatric Radiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, passed away peacefully surrounded by his loving family on Monday evening, February 3, at the age of 86.

Dr Heller graduated from Carleton College in 1959 and obtained his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in 1963. He subsequently joined the United States Air Force and became Captain of the Outpatient Department in the USAF Hospital, Izmir, Turkey. Upon his return to the States in 1966, Dr Heller began his residency in Radiology at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital and concluded with a fellowship in Pediatric Radiology at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital. In 1970, Dr Heller joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins as an Assistant Professor in Radiology and Pediatrics.

In 1975, Dr Heller came to Vanderbilt and founded the Department of Pediatric Radiology, serving as its leader through 2004. Dr Heller also assumed the leadership of the Radiology Residency Program which he held for over 20 years, and subsequently established our Fellowship in Pediatric Radiology. Throughout his years of service at Vanderbilt, Dr Heller worked closely with our pediatricians as an expert in cases of child abuse, to which he dedicated many hours of work and consultation. Dr Heller has written six books (one more than Moses, as he would often jokingly remind us) and more than 100 scientific articles furthering the science of pediatric radiology. He was also active internationally throughout his career, forging many relationships across the oceans. Among these, Dr. Heller served as consultant pediatric radiologist at Sick Children’s Hospital, London, where he made lifelong friendships.

Dr Heller was also a high achiever in other areas of life beyond Medicine, and he was often called a “Renaissance man” by all who knew him. He became a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, England, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Consultant to the International Pediatric Association of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. Crossing continents, he served as Consultant to the Minister of Health, Bahrain and Kuwait, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Radiology Outreach Foundation. Dr Heller was also a member of the National Zoological Park Advisory Board in DC and became a consultant at the Nashville Zoo. In 1981, Dr Heller was named Honorary Danish Consul for Tennessee; his love affair with Denmark and the importance of his work as Consul led Queen Margrethe II of Denmark to name him Knight Chevalier Class Royal Order of Dannebrog, and he was subsequently elevated to Knight First Class in 1999.

Dr Heller was a wonderful clinician, a wonderful teacher and friend, for whom the respect and affection from the members of his Department and from our pediatric and surgical colleagues have been undiminished by the passage of time. His inimitable creativity and sense of humor were only surpassed by his kindness, intelligence, generosity, his fund of knowledge, and endless enthusiasm. Pediatricians and houseofficers showed their appreciation for his teaching and his contributions to patient care by awarding him the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Department of Pediatrics in 1999. In 2009, in recognition of Dr. Heller’s fundamental contributions to our residency program and to our pediatric radiology educational mission, Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital named the Department of Radiology’s Heller Education Center Classroom in his honor, a project funded by 125 young radiologists recruited and trained by Dr. Heller during his tenure as head of the Radiology Residency program.

In 2010, Dr. Heller funded a Lectureship in Pediatric Radiology and in Pediatrics at Vanderbilt, the Toni and Richard M Heller Lecture, which fosters Dr. Heller’s enduring wish to support education in the specialty of Pediatric Radiology for years to come. I consider myself fortunate and honored to have known Dr. Heller for so many years and to count him as a mentor, colleague and friend. Dr. Heller retired in 2014, but his many contributions are indelibly engraved in the honor rolls of Vanderbilt, of Pediatric Radiology, and as a citizen of the world.

He is survived by his wife of 53 years and the enduring love of his life, Toni, a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity school, and by his daughter Jaime, an attorney in Nashville, and his son, Dr Richard E Heller, a pediatric radiologist, as well as his four grandchildren, Richard IV, Julian, Mark, and Bobby.

Marta Schulman MD, FAAP, FACR