Lifetime Achievement Award 2017

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of one of our pioneering members of API, John R. Gilbertson, MD. John died peacefully at the age of 65, on August 9, 2024, after battling a long-term illness. He is survived by his wife, Kaoru; and their two children, Leah and John, Jr. of Pittsburgh, PA. He is also survived by his mother, Elaine Gilbertson of Lynnfield, MA; his brother, Matthew and his wife, Deborah of Lynnfield, MA; his sister, Carla and her husband, Greg of McLean, VA; and his sister, Christina and her husband, Jon of Ipswich, MA. He was predeceased by his father, John R. Gilbertson of Lynnfield; and he is survived by five nieces and nephews.

John graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981 and Duke University School of Medicine in 1985. He completed his pathology residency and informatics fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. He was one of the initial driving forces of digital pathology, playing an integral role in the development of whole slide imaging devices. John held many positions during his career, including Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Associate Chief of Pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. At MGH he became an influential leader in Pathology Informatics education, where he published extensively on the curriculum, career options, and perception of informaticians within the pathology community, created the first case-based informatics retreats for fellows, and trained/mentored multiple informatics fellows and residents, all of whom have gone on to have multiple informatics leadership roles within both academia and industry. John served as President of the Association for Pathology Informatics in 2017, the same year that he was also recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the field. A private memorial ceremony was held on August 13, at the John A. Freyvogel Funeral Home in Pittsburgh.

Dr. John R. Gilbertson graduated from Duke University‘s medical school and completed his residency at the University of Pittsburgh. After serving as Director of Pathology Informatics and Associate Chief for Informatics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Gilbertson moved to the University of Pittsburgh‘s Department of Biomedical Informatics. 

He was a founding member of API and served as Vice President in 2015, President in 2017, and multiple years on the Meeting Planning Committee and as a Course Co-Director. In addition to serving as a member of DICOM and HL7 working groups, he was also an advisor to multiple industry groups such as Sunquest Information Systems, mTuitive, Inc., and Inspirata, Inc.

Early on, Dr. Gilbertson envisioned the rise of digital technology and its growing role in pathology through whole-slide imaging. Across multiple interviews, papers, and talks, he championed technological developments in image quality in tandem with improved diagnostic applications and enhanced standardization and validation practices. For Dr. Gilbertson, these advancements were key to empowering pathologists to better address patient needs by making their expertise more accessible to a broader global community through the sharing of whole-slide images.

Dr. Gilbertson‘s dedication to, and well regarded expertise, in the discipline emerged from decades of research on whole slide imaging, the development of hardware and software as Interscope Co-Founder and CTO, the study of standardization and validation of data, tissue banking, and computational pathology. Furthermore, recognizing the need to continue training subsequent generations, Dr. Gilbertson was instrumental in advocating for improved and nationally recognized residency and fellowship training programs in pathology informatics in anticipation of these growing trends. The API community is grateful for his contributions and, thus, was honored to present Dr. John R. Gilbertson with API‘s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.