Disaster Radiology: Ready or Not? Lessons from the Boston Marathon Bombing
Updated: Sep 15
An Interactive Roundtable with Karen S. Lee, MD FACR
What happens when your radiology department suddenly cannot operate as usual? A disaster might take the form of a mass casualty event, but it can just as easily stem from a PACS outage, hospital flooding, major power failure, cyberattack, or another sudden disruption that brings normal clinical workflow to a complete halt.
Disaster Radiology: Ready or Not? Lessons from the Boston Marathon Bombing is an interactive roundtable led by Karen S. Lee, MD, FACR, who was on the front lines managing the radiologic response to the Boston Marathon bombing. Her experience highlights a fundamental lesson: disaster preparedness is not just about managing mass casualties. It requires established communication channels, decisive leadership, operational flexibility, and resilient backup systems long before an emergency strikes.
A Global Perspective on Disaster Readiness Rather than a traditional lecture, Dr. Lee invites radiologists from around the world to participate in an open, practical discussion on real-world preparedness, lessons learned, and different regional approaches to crisis management:
IT & System Disruptions: How does your department maintain imaging workflows when PACS goes down, EHRs crash, or a cyberattack takes networks offline?
Physical Infrastructure Failures: What are your contingency protocols when hospital flooding, major power outages, or equipment failures make key facilities inaccessible?
Mass Casualty Surges: How are imaging services prioritized when patient volume spikes, and how are CT, MRI, ultrasound, and radiography operations adapted under pressure?
Crisis Leadership & Communication: Who makes key operational decisions during a shutdown, and how does radiology communicate effectively with emergency medicine, trauma teams, IT, and hospital leadership?
Disaster resilience cannot be built in the middle of a crisis. This session provides a collaborative platform to compare international strategies, pressure-test your department's contingency plans, and sharpen your operational response before the unexpected occurs.
About Karen Lee
Karen S. Lee, MD FACR is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and a radiologist specializing in Emergency Radiology and Body MRI at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). She serves as Associate Chief of the Emergency Radiology section, Director of Radiology Fellowship Training Programs, and Program Director for both the Body MRI and Cross-Sectional Imaging Fellowships. Dr. Lee earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed her radiology residency at BIDMC, where she served as Chief Resident. She remained at BIDMC to complete a fellowship in Body MRI.
Her research interests include imaging of acute abdominal pain in pregnancy, evaluating cognitive biases in emergency radiology, and reducing redundant imaging in the emergent setting. She has authored numerous scientific articles, review publications, and book chapters, and has been invited to speak nationally and internationally on abdominal MRI and gastrointestinal and genitourinary emergency imaging.
Dr. Lee is an active member of several professional societies, including the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), American College of Radiology (ACR), American Society of Emergency Radiology (ASER), and Society of Abdominal Radiology (SAR). She serves on the Scientific Program Committees for RSNA and ASER, and is a member of both the RSNA Multisystem Subcommittee and the RadioGraphics General Imaging Panel.
A dedicated educator and mentor, Dr. Lee is a peer reviewer for several journals, including Abdominal Imaging, Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, RadioGraphics, and The New England Journal of Medicine. She has received multiple consecutive teaching and mentorship awards at BIDMC, and her educational and scientific exhibits have been recognized with honors by RSNA, ARRS, and ASER. Dr. Lee is a Fellow of both the American College of Radiology and the Society of Abdominal Radiology.
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