Tabassum Ahmad, MD

Tabassum Ahmad, MD, is an associate professor at Washington University School of Medicine’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR). She earned her medical degree from Aga Khan University, and completed her diagnostic radiology residency in the Henry Ford Hospital Health System. This was followed by a fellowship in neuroradiology at the University of Toronto.

She previously served on the faculty at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse and at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Following a time in private practice in the Tampa Bay area, she came to St. Louis to pursue a second fellowship in breast imaging at MIR. Then she worked at Missouri Baptist Hospital before joining the Washington University faculty. At MIR, she is a member of the Breast Imaging Section and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) service director of that section. Ahmad is working to expand the service to Christian Hospital in St. Louis County and other BJC Healthcare sites. She is a member of the Department of Radiology DEI Committee and part of the Women in Radiology Group. She serves on the Radiology Quality Steering Committee for the Breast Imaging Section and the Satisfaction Committee for the Joanne Knight Breast Health Center.

She is a member of the Society of Breast Imaging and the American Society of Neuroradiology. Her research interests include multiparametric MRI for breast cancer diagnosis in order to potentially improve specificity of this highly sensitive modality. She is involved in a long-term survey-based project in coordination with breast radiologists at the Tanzania and Pakistan campuses of Aga Khan University Hospitals, examining why some women have significant delays in presentation despite advanced breast cancer symptoms. The researchers are exploring how these delays could potentially be addressed, using existing resources in very disparate health systems.