Thomas W Battey, MD
Diagnostic Radiology
Additional Locations
Bio & Overview
Thomas Battey, MD, is a diagnostic radiologist with expertise in cardiac CT and MRI, vascular imaging, and thoracic radiography and CT. He is also interested in medical education.
He lived in the United Kingdom and the US for the first few years of his life before his family settled outside of Baltimore.
From an early age, his parents, and later his AP biology teacher and undergraduate mentor, instilled the importance of asking deep questions, thinking critically, and enjoying puzzles even when there is no clear answer.
“I decided to explore a career in medicine to unite all of these interests while having a positive impact on the world around me,” he says.
His initial exposure to radiology came as an undergraduate, when he worked on a project evaluating brain volumes in sea lions exposed to environmental neurotoxins and helped publish the first MRI-based atlas of the sea lion brain. His final decision to become a physician came after working with the stroke research team at Massachusetts General Hospital before medical school.
Battey earned his medical degree from the University of Maryland and completed his internal medicine internship at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore. He then moved to Charlottesville to complete diagnostic radiology residency and fellowship in noninvasive cardiovascular and thoracic imaging at UVA Health, where he was chief resident for two years.
Academic Information
- Department
- Radiology and Medical Imaging
- Academic Role
- Assistant Professor
- Division
- Noninvasive Cardiovascular Imaging
- Gender
- Male
- Languages
- English
- Age Groups Seen
- Infants (0-2)
Children (2-12)
Adolescents (12-21)
Adults (21-65)
Older Adults (65+)
- Primary Education
- University Of Maryland Baltimore
- Residency
- University of Virginia Medical Center
- Additional Specialties
- Thoracic Imaging
Highlights
Meet Diagnostic Radiologist Thomas Battey, MD
Hi, I'm Tom Battey and I'm a cardiovascular and thoracic radiologist at UVA Health. What I do on a daily basis is interpret advanced imaging for patients with a range of diseases affecting the heart, lungs, and blood vessels of the whole body. We use CAT scans, MRIs, and X-rays to try and diagnose and help our other colleagues treat disease in those organs. I remember the moment I decided to become a doctor when I was working in Boston and I was working with an interventional radiologist and I remember seeing a patient in the emergency department who had a very severe stroke. The patient went to have a procedure to remove the clot. When we went to check on the patient after the procedure, the patient sat up, looked at me, and said, "What happened?" And I felt like I had witnessed science fiction in real time. It was remarkable and that was the moment,I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do but I wanted to go into this field that let things like that happen and contribute in some way. Patients can expect a really welcoming environment when they come to get an imaging study at UVA. The staff that we have here really put the patient first. The patient is the focus of their work day in and day out and patients can expect to be made comfortable and welcomed when they arrive for either a quick or a longer imaging study. When it comes time for a radiologist to interpret the study, I think the great thing is although you can't choose your radiologist, all of the radiologists here at UVA are not only excellent physicians and excellent radiologists, they're excellent people.