Edward A. Sickles Distinguished Professorship in Radiology

For nearly 60 years Edward and Dale Sickles have shared a life dedicated to medicine. Their recent gift, to fund a distinguished professorship in breast imaging, will provide valuable time and resources to advance the field that Ed played a key role in shaping for more than 40 years.

We’re delighted to be able to make this gift.

Edward Sickles, MD

Sickles and Dale met in 1965, on their first day at Cornell Medical College in New York City and married during their second year of medical school. They came to San Francisco in 1973 when Ed began his radiology residency at UCSF after working on cancer research in the U.S. Public Health Service during the Vietnam War. Dale practiced as a pediatrician in Oakland and was the medical director of Alameda County California Children’s Services, a program for children with complex and chronic diseases.

Both are modest and soft-spoken, quick to smile and credit each other for insight. Describing the impetus for their philanthropy, Ed said, “This was an idea of Dale’s. She has carefully managed our finances over the years, and when she mentioned endowing a distinguished professorship it just clicked. Of course we should do this! Why didn’t I think of it?”

His career as breast radiologist began almost as a fluke. Before beginning the last year of his residency, two of the three radiologists who were assigned to interpret mammograms left UCSF, and the remaining radiologist didn’t want to be solely responsible for mammograms.

Alex Margulis, the department chair at the time, made Ed an offer he couldn’t refuse – he could join the faculty right away if he agreed to interpret all the mammograms. There was just one catch: Ed had never even seen a mammogram, so he took a one-week course offered by a UCLA radiologist, and from then on was self-taught.

Ed became a prolific contributor to breast imaging education and scientific literature, authoring more than 375 scientific publications, teaching hundreds of residents and breast imaging fellows at UCSF, and teaching thousands of practicing radiologists all over the U.S. and in many foreign countries. He developed an enlarged fine-detail type of “magnification” mammogram that allows earlier detection of cancer in some women and fewer biopsies for some women who do not have cancer. He proved that women with multiple similar findings in both breasts on a screening mammogram do not need any additional imaging or biopsy; and he developed the “probably benign” approach for mammograms that safely and effectively substitutes a 6-month follow-up mammogram for biopsy. Millions of women around the world have benefited from these advances.

With his customary modesty, reflecting on his partnership with Dale, Ed remarked, “This gift couldn’t have happened without her. My career couldn’t have happened without her. Giving back to UCSF is the natural thing to do, because my career happened here.”

When he learned that Bonnie Joe, MD, PhD, was named the inaugural Edward A. Sickles Distinguished Professor, Ed was thrilled, observing that, “Bonnie has a brilliant intellect. You give her a problem and she fixes it. She’s a wonderful person to work with, and she’s kind, calm, nurturing. That’s what has made the modern Breast Imaging Division what it is.”

Ed still reads mammograms four days a month as a recall faculty member and plans to continue as long as his vision remains 20/20. When he isn’t working, he and Dale enjoy spending time with their daughter, long daily walks, birdwatching, opera, art, and travel. When asked what they hoped their gift would accomplish, the Sickles agreed: “We want others at UCSF see that they too can do something like this. We’re delighted to be able to make this gift.”