In Memoriam Desmond Walker, MD, FRCPC

Ontario radiologists lost an important colleague who served our profession for many years in his combined capacity as OAR President and also as the OMA DI Section Chair working to integrate radiology interests on all fronts. Among the many accomplishments during his joint tenure, he was the radiologist responsible for inspiring the OAR’s clinical business case report that convinced MOH to accept and institute a formal process that paved the way for the approval of over 200 scanners in Ontario hospitals since 1995. MOH adopted the OAR’s CT approval methodology, based on Dr. Walker’s work, to almost immediately permit several CT scanner approvals.  

Once CT was successfully implemented, he participated in his capacity as OAR President and Vice Chair of the OMA DI Section to obtain a similar approval process for MRI scanners. This work, and his quest to eliminate unthinkably long CT and MRI wait lists for Ontario patients, made it possible for timely diagnoses to become a reality when wait lists were well in excess of a year. Radiologists, working jointly through the OAR and the DI Section, were seen as leaders in patient care advocacy.

Every day, hundreds of CT and MRI patients are now being scanned across Ontario due to Dr. Walker’s visionary work.