PA College Magazine - Fall 2021 - 18

PA COLLEGE / EVENTS & ALUMNI NEWS
Hess Honored with Distinguished
Service Award
Robert " Bob " Hess '73, RDMS, BS,
former program director for PA College's
Diagnostic Medical Sonography (DMS)
program, has been named the 2021 recipient
of the Distinguished Service Award.
After first earning a degree in business
administration and working as a
computer programmer for six months,
he was drafted. His assignment took him
to a small, inner-city hospital in Chicago,
where he primarily worked in the X-ray
department and picked up shifts in
a larger hospital's ER. " In Chicago, I
learned what it meant to live in a poor
section of a big city, " says Hess.
In 1971, Hess enrolled in Penn Medicine
Lancaster General Hospital's (LGH)
radiological technologist program.
Halfway through, he was asked to start
a new diagnostic imaging service using
high-frequency sound waves. After
graduating in 1973, he was hired as an
ultrasound technologist. Soon after, he
traveled with Dr. William Young, the
head of this new service, to Philadelphia
to attend the first ultrasound training
program offered in eastern Pennsylvania.
" When we returned, all of the sonograms
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were performed at no charge for the
first month, while we learned to use
the new equipment and interpret
the images, " Hess recalls. In 1975, he
became one of the first 200 candidates
to be registered in Diagnostic Medical
Sonography.
" Dr. Young and I worked well as a
team. He encouraged me to learn more
about diagnostic medicine, and he
created opportunities for me to
sharpen my skills. When we started,
Dr. Young told me that I would be
responsible for performing the
sonographic procedures, and he would
be responsible for the interpretation
of the sonograms. It was a great
decision for both of us, " says Hess.
" For the ultrasound service to succeed,
the sonographer needed to have the
responsibility of conducting a careful
and focused examination of the patient
and producing images that accurately
reflected what was present in the body.
Without this commitment, the accuracy
of the interpretation could easily be
compromised. I loved the challenge of
examining the patient and discovering
what was causing the patient's problem.
I also tried very hard to make the
examination truly diagnostic. "
" In the early 1980s, it was difficult to
attract the number of skilled sonographers
we needed to meet the significant
increase in demand we were seeing, "
he continues. At the end of 1981,
LGH started a training program. " My
colleagues and I developed the curriculum
from scratch. We had two radiologic
technologists as our first students and
at least one of those students, Mary
(Miller) Finley '83, is still employed as
a sonographer, " says Hess.
Over the next decade, the ultrasound
section was extraordinarily busy. The
number of sonographers had increased;
however, the demands on the team
were intense.
" In addition to performing routine
sonograms, we were learning new
procedures, performing many stat
exams, and teaching students in the
classroom and in the clinical area.
The team of staff sonographers was
frequently on call. For a while, I was
working about 40 hours of overtime
each pay period, " Hess says.
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PA College Magazine - Fall 2021

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