BY ALLISON LEVITSKY
Daily Post Staff Writer
A Stanford radiologist and cancer researcher died after he crashed his car into a large tree during a rainstorm just outside Palo Alto, local authorities said today (Jan. 9).
Juergen Willmann, 45, of Stanford, was identified by the Santa Clara County medical examiner’s office. He died shortly after crashing his 2015 orange Fiat 500 into a tree in the median of Page Mill Road shortly before noon on Monday, California Highway Patrol Officer Art Montiel said.
“We are all deeply saddened by the sudden and tragic loss of our friend and esteemed colleague, Juergen Willmann,” Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, chair of the Department of Radiology, said in a statement emailed to the Post. “This is a devastating tragedy for which no words will suffice. Our love and prayers are with his wife, Amelie Lutz, and family during this most difficult time.”
Lutz is an assistant professor of radiology at the Stanford University Medical Center and a clinical radiologist at Stanford Hospital.
Willmann was driving in the left lane of eastbound Page Mill Road when he lost control of the car about 100 or 150 feet south of Coyote Hill Road, just outside Palo Alto city limits. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.
Montiel said motorists should remember that wearing a seatbelt would increase their odds of surviving a major crash.
CHP officers closed Page Mill Road between Coyote Hill and Deer Creek roads until 2:27 p.m., Montiel said.
Willmann was the head of the Willmann Lab, a translational molecular imaging laboratory where 13 other doctors are developing imaging tools for early detection and treatment monitoring of abdominal and pelvic cancer, including pancreatic, liver, renal, ovarian and prostate cancer.
He was a member of Stanford’s interdisciplinary biosciences institute, Bio-X, and the Stanford Cancer Institute. Last year, he was appointed Executive Vice Chair of Strategy, Outreach and Clinical Trials for the Department of Radiology at Stanford University Hospital.
As a clinical radiologist, Willmann focused on diagnostic radiology, abdominal and pelvic imaging, cancer imaging and molecular imaging, according to Stanford’s website. In 2013, he was appointed Clinical Division Chief of Body Imaging in the Stanford University Medical Center’s Department of Radiology.
Willmann graduated from medical school at Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg in Germany in 1998. He completed his internship at the University Hospital Freiburg in Germany in 1999 and his residency at the University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland in 2003.
