Dr. Walter Montanera, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Neuroradiologist and Master Teacher, retires

Esteemed mentor, friend and colleague Dr. Walt Montanera, Associate Professor of Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto (UofT), retired on July 1 after an amazing career spanning over 40 years.

The Department of Medical Imaging at St. Michael’s Hospital and UofT would like to congratulate him on what has been a spectacular career as an academic diagnostic and interventional neuroradiologist who has had a tremendous impact across the entire spectrum of academic neuroradiology. We have been fortunate to witness the majority of that career at St. Michael’s Hospital.

Dr. Montanera trained as a resident and fellow at St. Michael’s in neuroradiology in the 1980s. After a brief period in community practice at Toronto East General Hospital, Dr. Montanera returned to UofT, first at Toronto Western Hospital/UHN, and then arrived on staff at St. Michael’s starting in 1999. In his 25 years on staff at St. Michael’s, he made a lasting impression on his colleagues and trainees, was always helpful to all those around him, and was beloved by his neuroradiology colleagues and trainees, and by the neurologists, neurosurgeons and critical care physicians with whom he worked closely and supported.

Dr. Montanera served as the Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program Director for UofT from 2001 to 2007. He has been honoured with the prestigious E.L. Lansdown Teaching Award in Medical Imaging from UofT twice, in 1994 and 2007, and has been awarded University of Toronto Medical Imaging teaching awards for residents and fellows countless times. In 2022, he was also recognized as an inaugural recipient of the prestigious U of T Medical Imaging Master Teacher award.

With an h-index of 38 and nearly 13,000 citations, Dr. Montanera has made huge clinical and research impacts across the entire spectrum of neuroradiology, particularly in neurovascular intervention. His tireless passion, clinical and procedural skill and research collaborations have advanced this field, especially in its still nascent years, which includes holding positions as site lead and co-author on the ESCAPE trial, published in NEJM in 2015, which changed medical practice in the treatment of stroke. In addition to caring for many appreciative patients, he has mentored and trained countless radiologists as well as neurosurgeons and neurologists in the fields of both diagnostic and therapeutic neuroradiology.

We congratulate Dr. Montanera on an outstanding career at the University of Toronto, which has advanced the field of neuroradiology to new heights.