Biography
Christopher Gutjahr, MD, is a practicing radiologist who specializes in Interventional Radiology. Dr. Gutjahr graduated summa cum laude from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, IL with a Bachelor of Science in 1993. He earned his M.D. from the University of Chicago- Pritzker, Chicago, IL in 1997. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine/Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Hospitals in 2001 and practiced for several years. He then completed an additional residency and fellowship in Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology at Thomas Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia, PA in 2014. Since 2014, Dr. Gutjahr has been part of the faculty in the Department of Radiology, at the University of New Mexico. He presently serves as the IR Division Co-Chief and is a member of the Program Evaluation Committee, Surgical Oncology Fellowship, and is the Director of the Division of Interventional Radiology Best Practices and Peer Review. He is driven and committed to sharing his knowledge with the incoming fellows to help prepare them for their clinical experience.
Personal Statement
As an academic interventional radiologist, my primary goal is to provide state of the art compassionate care to the people of New Mexico. One of my main interests is the use of minimally invasive interventional radiology techniques for the treatment of cancer, also known as interventional oncology. Examples of my contributions to this at UNM include improved access to interventional oncology through active collaboration with our colleagues in gastroenterology, medical oncology and surgery, development and expansion of our hepatic radioembolization program, and introduction of intraprocedural cone beam CT for tumor targeting. My interests and associated contributions have extended beyond interventional oncology, though, including the introduction of other techniques new to UNM such as percutaneous thoracic duct embolization, drug-coated balloon treatment of dysfunctional hemodialysis fistulae and complex IVC filter retrieval.
Aside from the delivery of care to patients, I greatly enjoy teaching the field of interventional radiology to our students, residents and fellows. To illustrate this, I was honored to receive the inaugural ‘Outstanding Teacher in Interventional Radiology’ award from our house staff in 2017 and again in 2018. For students, I developed and am the clerkship director for the fourth-year medical student Interventional Radiology elective.
Areas of Specialty
Interventional Radiology
Internal Medicine
Certifications
American Board of Radiology, IR/DR
American Board of Internal Medicine
Achievements & Awards
Outstanding Teacher in Interventional Radiology, UNM SOM, 2017, 2018, 2020
Gender
Male
Languages
- English
Courses Taught
In-progress
Research and Scholarship
My research interests were initially tailored to general IR, with a focus on projects our fellows can easily complete. Examples include the preprocedural imaging required for percutaneous gastrostomy tube placement and the utilization of cholecystostomy tubes. While I still wish to actively involve our learners in research, I would like to develop a more longstanding research program in IR with a focus on interventional oncology. To this end, I am currently engaged in a project to refine the radiation dose used in the radioembolization of liver cancer - an all too common disease in our state.
Gutjahr, C.J., Iverson, E.P., Walker, S.T. et al. Utility of pre-procedural CT and abdominal radiography before percutaneous radiologic gastrostomy placement. Abdom Radiol 45, 571-575 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-019-02352-1