Harry Agress, MD, FACR, MSH ’73 had a successful career in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Hackensack University Medicine Center before transitioning into a full time photographer upon retiring from private practice. He recently donated four of his photographs to the Ruttenberg Treatment Center at Mount Sinai.
Career in Medicine
Dr. Agress’s father was an Internist and Hematologist in St. Louis at Jewish and Barnes Hospitals. Following his father’s example, he attended medical school at Tufts University School of Medicine. He then chose to complete his internship at Mount Sinai because of the worldwide reputation as an excellent medical center and great teaching.
After his internship, he spent two years at the NIH in the Division of Computer Research and Technology and Division of Nuclear Medicine. All of this piqued his interest in the field of Radiology, and he came back to NY for my Radiology Residency at Columbia University. He subsequently went into private practice of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine at Hackensack University Medical Center (NJ), while also teaching radiology residents.
Transition into Photography Full-Time
Dr. Agress first got involved in photography as a young boy, when one of his father’s patients brought him a Nikon camera from Japan. Upon retiring from private practice, he organized his thousands of photographs and developed a website. He has been fortunate to present the work at various exhibits and to lecture to students and photography lovers on Photography and Curiosity in New York and St. Louis. As a visually oriented individual radiology allowed him to look inside the human body and photography has allowed him to better understand the world outside.
Advice for a Student
The single most important advice Dr. Agress would tell a student is to go into a field of medicine that he or she is passionate about, whether it be traditional or nontraditional. "Learning and practicing medicine requires a huge amount of time and energy. It is simply too much to master if it does not really interest you."