Beverley Newman B.Sc. MB.BCh. FACR FSPR is Associate Chief of Pediatric Radiology at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital and Professor of Radiology at Stanford University. She is the physician leader in pediatric CT and chest imaging with additional particular interest in newborn imaging, cardiovascular imaging and paediatric dose reduction.
She has presented numerous scientific papers at national and international meetings and has been a frequent participant in CME courses and invited moderator and guest lecturer / visiting professor. She is an active reviewer for multiple radiology journals and editor of the respiratory system section for Caffey’s textbook of Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging. She has been actively involved in numerous professional organizations. She has been a fellow of the ACR since 2002 and received the FSPR honor from the society for pediatric radiology in 2025.
Can you share a memorable case from your career that had a significant impact on your approach to paediatric radiology?
One of the most memorable case of my career was one early on of an intussusception that perforated suddenly and unexpectedly during what seemed to be a routine reduction, the only one of my entire career (so far). We were all using barium for enemas at that time including intussusception reductions. A fair amount of barium got into the peritoneal cavity and some contrast (as expected) remained visible after surgery and washout. The child did well post-op and had no abdominal problems afterwards but even on a radiograph follow-up several months later, I overheard one of my colleagues say, “oh that’s the one Dr Newman perforated”.
This case had a lasting effect on me. While I realise that perforation can happen even with perfect technique, to this day , whenever I reduce an intussusception I am reminded of that child and I am very careful about following best practice and meticulous technique. I have never used barium for intussusception reduction since that day. I switched immediately to water soluble contrast even though multiple of my colleagues maintained that there was a higher success rate of reduction with barium contrast. I was an early enthusiastic adopter of air reduction when that became available and have encouraged and helped colleagues wherever I worked to use air for intussusception reduction.
What advancement in paediatric radiology have you witnessed over the years, and how have they changed patient care?
The changes and advancements in imaging including paediatric radiology that I have been part of have been phenomenal with enormous impact on patient diagnosis and care. Here are a few.
US was in its infancy when I was in training, now we have amazing real time scanning and Doppler capability, 3D, elastography, contrast enhanced studies and much more. I remember the early days of liver transplant, before Doppler imaging was available, when we would look for pulsation in the hilum to determine if there was a patent hepatic artery!!
CT was in its infancy when I started, single slice and slow, thick axial images only, contrast imaging was pretty poor. What an amazing change with multislice scanners, initially just a few then 16, 32, 64 and more quickly following. CTA, gated scanning , ever thinner slices, 2D/3D reconstructions. Then dual source and now photon counting CT as well as PET/CT. Even more important, although initially slow to come, increasing attention paid by both imagers and vendors to reducing CT dose, especially in children.
Clinical MRI imaging only began after I had a faculty position. I and many others had to learn this technology without a lot of formal training, the advancements in MR imaging are way too many to even enumerate. It has become an indispensable anatomic and functional modality in almost every area (head/neck/spine, cardiovascular, abdomen/pelvis, musculoskeletal, fetal, oncology) MRI, MRA, PET/MR, improved and specific coils and faster scanning are just a few of the tools developed. Many useful postprocessing techniques.
The downside of this burgeoning technology brings several things to mind:
- Increased reliance on imaging for answers and technology with decreasing clinical skills.
- Huge increase in number of imaging studies obtained and volume of images to review in cross-sectional techniques lead to radiologist fatigue and burnout.
- Increasing training and reliance on cross-sectional imaging with loss of knowledge and expertise in interpreting plain radiographs and fluoroscopy.
Související
Motol Day of Imaging in Paediatric Radiology / Masterclass
29 May 2025
9:00—17:00
Great Lecture Hall, Motol University Hospital
I heard that part of your family has roots in Central Europe? Have you ever traced it back?
Yes, I have researched our family background quite a lot.
My mother was born and grew up in Vienna. She was sent to England on the kindertransport at 12 years of age where she lived with a family for the duration of the war. My grandmother survived the concentration camps but her husband and son were killed. She went back to Vienna after the war and lived there the rest of her life. My mother did not want to return to Austria and moved to South Africa to live with her half-sister, ultimately marrying and raising a family there. Unfortunately, she died of leukemia at the young age of 46.
My father was born in Lithuania in 1920. His family moved to South Africa in 1933 to escape poverty and discrimination. He had to leave school at 18 years to support his mother and four siblings when his father died during a gallbladder operation.
My older sister and I both studied medicine and became doctors in South Africa. During tumultuous political times in the 70s and 80s in South Africa, my sister, brother and I moved to the USA and ultimately became US citizens. My father and stepmother joined us in the US several years later. A few years ago Austria changed their citizenship rules for persecuted ancestors, enabling my siblings and I to obtain Austrian citizenship.
I do know more about my grandparents and great grandparents in Europe but have just shared some of the relevant information here.
Teaching is a significant part of your career. What makes teaching effective and enjoyable to students?
Teaching has always been a major passion bringing great fun and joy and sometimes frustration. Some of the pivotal times of my career have been when we finally completed a presentation or paper and the trainee (in spite of multiple rewrites) acknowledged gratefully how much they learned in the process, or when ex-student have enthusiastically greeted me at a conference and told me how much they remembered from my teaching or sent me cases they were struggling with and asked for my opinion.
For me, teaching and learning is a two way street. There has to be participation and engagement of all parties to be effective. I often learn a lot from the students while trying to teach them. While didactic lectures have their place and put things in perspective, I think there is no substitute for one on one review and teaching on actual images and clinical and imaging scenarios. I want to challenge students, not in an unpleasant mean way, but to push them to think and want to advance their knowledge. I set pretty high standards for the product we produce, our imaging interpretation. At the same time, I expect them to challenge me and expect high standards for my educational offerings.
