The Johns Hopkins radiologist who advanced ultrasound technology

Roger Sanders couldn’t fathom joining the English military when he was called to serve at age 18.

A conscientious objector to World War II, Sanders had only one alternative: to do another kind of public service. Healthcare seemed like the best option.

Sanders stumbled into the medical field but quickly found his footing. He became a highly respected radiologist who made major advances in ultrasounds, an emerging technology when he entered the field. He spent decades researching and treating patients in the Baltimore area, first at the Johns Hopkins University and hospital before founding his own practice.

“He just wanted to help people,” said his son, Nigel Sanders. “He recognized the world’s an obviously flawed place where there’s lots going on, but there’s also inherent good in people and that every life is worthwhile and valuable.”

Roger Sanders died March 22 of heart failure and other complications. He was 89.

He was born in London on June 17, 1936, to Douglas and Angela Sanders. He grew up in a Quaker household with three younger siblings, Philip, Mary and Andrew, and attended boarding school in Switzerland.

After two years of public service, Sanders enrolled at University College Oxford and then the University of Oxford Medical School. He realized he wasn’t interested in blood or disease, and he was allergic to an antibiotic spray often used to treat patients. More fascinated by the research behind medicine, Sanders sought a nonclinical field, Nigel Sanders said.

At Oxford, he “kind of fell into” radiology, his son said. Ultrasounds were relatively new and unfamiliar. After he finished school, he worked in the area for about six years, ending his time in England as chief resident in the radiology department of United Oxford Hospitals.

He was offered a job as a radiology instructor at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1970 and moved there with his then-wife, Tao Tao, whom he’d met in college. They welcomed a daughter, Nicolette, but struggled to maintain their relationship while Tao Tao traveled back and forth to England.

They divorced, and Roger Sanders married his second wife, Angelita, in the late ’70s. They raised their son, Nigel, in Columbia and built a racquetball court on their property. Though Roger worked often, he found time to take his son to Orioles games and coach his soccer teams. They traveled often and enjoyed skiing.

Roger Sanders’ responsibilities at Hopkins grew as he became a professor of radiology and urology and eventually held a joint appointment in obstetrics and gynecology at the hospital. He worked at Hopkins for about two decades.

“I think he loved being there, and he really enjoyed the facility and being a part of the pioneership,” Nigel Sanders said.

Barbara Del Prince met Roger Sanders when she interviewed for her first ultrasound job at Hopkins in 1988. Sanders came off as a “funny, quirky guy,” she said, but he could be a tough boss.

“He really saw the sonographers as an extension of physicians, so he expected us to really understand what we were looking at,” Del Prince said.

Sanders wasn’t a doctor with a big ego who couldn’t be challenged, Del Prince said. She recalled looking over film with him and telling him a patient’s kidney was in the wrong place. He didn’t agree at first, but Del Prince pushed. Finally, he saw what she saw.

“He would respect what you had to say,” she said.

Sanders prioritized learning in the workplace, she added. He hosted an annual conference at which doctors from other hospitals and schools would visit Hopkins to observe and study its work. Conference revenue went into a continuing education fund for sonographers, Del Prince said.

The longer they worked together, the more Sanders showed his quirkiness and made offbeat jokes. Beyond that, he was a brilliant doctor and trailblazer, she said.

He wrote books on ultrasonography, many still used to teach today, and authored more than 150 articles. He helped found and served as first president of the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound. He was recognized by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine in 1982 and named the Joseph Holmes Clinical Pioneer in 2001.

“In the United States, Roger was probably one of the No. 1 names in ultrasound, and he really moved the field forward,” Del Prince said.

As his tenure at Hopkins ended in 1990, he founded the Ultrasound Institute of Baltimore in Cross Keys before moving it to Owings Mills. He also worked for a decade as a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Thomas Jefferson University.

“He just enjoyed other curious minds,” his son said.

Roger and Angelita divorced in 1986. Around the time he left Hopkins, he met Barri Sanders, who would become his wife of 25 years. They traveled together often, for work and pleasure. Barri worked in peace studies, and the couple sometimes visited war zones, where Roger would evaluate locals and provide medical care.

“He enjoyed the puzzle of solving the kinds of things that other GYNs or other radiologists did not know much about,” Barri Sanders said. “A medical mystery was something he really dug into.”

The couple semiretired in New Mexico after Sanders sold his Baltimore practice, but he continued to advise local women’s health clinics and do ultrasound work for international charities. He also taught at the University of New Mexico. He later moved to California to be near his son.

After he and Barri split up a few years ago, they maintained an amicable relationship. When she thinks of him now, her mind goes to pictures hung in his office of babies he treated. She thinks of his intellect and agility, and his commitment to helping people at home and abroad.

“There wasn’t much that held Roger back,” she said.

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