Stanford Radiology Welcomes Associate Chair for Education Michael Federle, MD

Posted 5:08 PM, October 20, 2008, by jaruiz

As our new associate chair for education, Michael Federle, MD, is transforming our educational programs at all levels, from medical students to practicing radiologists, by channeling the excellent technical and personal resources in our Department and on campus.

Since he arrived at Stanford this fall, he has been excited about the outpouring of support from faculty: "There are so many faculty members in our Department who are already integrating new teaching methods into the classroom and who are eager to play an important role in transforming education. One of the enticements for coming here was the opportunity to work with such bright and supportive colleagues." Dr. Federle has already initiated weekly teaching sessions with the body imaging fellows, and he will be taking an active role in our Continuing Medical Education (CME) Program. He is also working to ensure that there is dedicated space for radiology as part of the Immersive & Simulation-Based Learning Center at Stanford's Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge.

Medical student education is one area in which Dr. Federle is also making a significant impact:

"I really think that Stanford medical students are not getting as much exposure to radiology as they should, and I want radiology to be part of their curriculum from day one and to play an integral role throughout all four years of their medical education." Towards this end, Dr. Federle has met with the Medical Student Curriculum Committee and with faculty from departments such as Anatomy to discuss improving and updating medical student education. As a result, Dr. Federle will be teaching part of the Anatomy course and integrating different teaching methods into the classroom, such as virtual dissections and 3D modeling. Overcoming the pervasive campus culture weighted towards new research and technological developments will be another challenge he will face in his new role as associate chair: "I have to work to assure that the clinical and educational parts of our mission are given their due time and resources to keep everything in balance."

Dr. Federle brings a wealth of expertise to our Department and its mission of improving health through excellence in image-based patient care, research, and education. He completed his undergraduate degree in biology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and went on to graduate from medical school at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After finishing his internship in internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati Hospital in Ohio, he decided that radiology was more interesting. He applied to and was accepted at the radiology residency program of the University of Cincinnati.

At the completion of his residency, Dr. Federle began teaching at the University of California, San Francisco, (UCSF) as a clinical instructor and then as a professor. As a clinical instructor, Dr. Federle had the opportunity to interact with many of his current Stanford colleagues such as Drs. Barth, Glazer, Herfkens, Jeffrey, and Van Dalsem. During his 10 years at UCSF, he served in a variety of prominent positions including chief of radiology; vice chair of radiology; section chief of CT body scanning and GI radiology; and chief of the medical staff. Prior to coming to our Department, he was the director of abdominal imaging for 16 of his 19 years at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served as the chair of radiology as well as the chief of quality process and improvement.

Dr. Federle's interest in teaching began when he was an undergraduate: "I really enjoy finding new knowledge and transmitting it to others. It doesn't matter what the content is. So I studied biology as well as English and philosophy as an undergraduate; I thought I would end up teaching English. I eventually decided on medicine as a career even though I had no role models in the field because I come from a long line of farmers from southern Indiana." Throughout his career, his teaching duties have spanned the spectrum from teaching beginning medical students to teaching the most sophisticated subspecialty radiologists, and he has enjoyed the unique challenges of educating such a variety of audiences.

His numerous awards attest to his teaching talents. Dr. Federle has been awarded Teacher of the Year multiple times throughout his career. In 2007, the residents at the University of Pittsburgh created an award in his honor, the Michael P. Federle Mentorship Award. The residents developed this award to recognize Dr. Federle not only for his remarkable teaching but also for his service as a role model and mentor to future radiologists. In addition to his teaching, Dr. Federle's research accomplishments include 238 peer-reviewed journal articles and 17 books.

Dr. Federle is also a co-founder of Amirsys, which is a company that produces radiology textbooks to provide decision support to radiologists and to guide them in making diagnoses. He established the company along with Rick Harnsberger, MD, and Anne Osbourn, MD, neuroradiologists from the Radiology Department at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Each series that Amirsys publishes is based on the experiences of authors from around the country: "Our series of textbooks cover the entire spectrum of every specialty in radiology, and each have become the bestsellers in their field. Our online decision-support product, STATdx, is now used in several thousand radiology departments across the country including the great majority of training programs." Dr. Federle and his colleagues have just finished a new Expert Differential Diagnosis Series, which will be coming out at the 2008 Annual Conference of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). His contribution will be a section on the abdomen: "Writing for Amirsys is both a vocation and avocation; I really, really enjoy the whole process from gathering interesting cases to writing them up. I can lose myself for hours doing that."

After 19 years, Dr. Federle is excited to be back in the Bay Area and at Stanford: "I greatly admire my colleagues in Radiology. This is a satisfying and stimulating environment." Although he has been away from Stanford for many years, Dr. Federle's older son, Andrew, attended Stanford as an undergraduate. Andrew and his wife now live in Toronto, where he is an Episcopal priest. Dr. Federle's younger son, Tim, has performed on Broadway in New York, where he was part of the original cast of "The Little Mermaid." He is currently the choreographer and associate director for a new Broadway play, "The Prairie," which is based on the book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

When he's not in his office, you will probably find Dr. Federle on the Stanford golf course. At his golf course in Pittsburgh, he made a hole in one at the 15th hole from 165 yards away. He hopes to improve his shot at Stanford.