News

Mark H. Wholey, MD, FSIR, a founding member of SIR and its president from 1982–1983, died on Feb. 25 at the age of 97. Dr. Wholey was noted for the development of innovative devices, such as the Medrad injector and the Wholey series of guidewires, and advances regarding the carotid system. As a founder of SIR, he played an active role throughout the 1970s and 1980s, helping to establish and organize the SIR Annual Scientific Meeting and engage with other specialties to advance IR. His work and contributions to IR and SIR were recognized with SIR’s highest honor, the Gold Medal, in 2008.

Born in McKees Rocks, Pa., Dr. Wholey was a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and received his medical degree in 1953 from Hahneman Medical College, now part of Drexel University, in Philadelphia.

Following graduation, he trained at Case Western Reserve and the Mayo Clinic, among other places, before taking a neuroradiology and cardiovascular radiology fellowship in 1961 in Lund, Sweden, through the National Institutes of Health. In Lund, he learned angiography and catheter skills that he brought back to Pittsburgh’s Shadyside Hospital, where he established an IR practice and served as chairman of the department of radiology and director of cardiovascular and interventional radiology. During this time, he partnered with Steve Heilman, MD, a primary care physician, to co-found Medrad and help develop the portable angiographic injector, called the "Mark Series" flow rate controlled system.

While practicing in Pittsburgh, Dr. Wholey was associated with Carnegie Mellon University and worked with engineers there to create many innovative technologies, including the “Wholey” series of controllable and steerable guide wires. During his career as a doctor, inventor and entrepreneur, Wholey founded many successful companies and developed devices such as balloons, stents, stent grafts, and a filter wire for carotid distal protection. He also served on numerous boards and committees, including the Food and Drug Administration Medical Devices Advisory Committee where he served on panels that reviewed circulatory and radiologic devices.

His full obituary, a list of survivors and memorial information is available here.