Daniel Rodgers is a full circle example of why the Rivers Health Scholarship Foundation exists. It’s never far from his mind when he goes to work at Rivers Health and cares for people he knows.
Rodgers, a physician with Radiology, Inc., was the first recipient of the Foundation’s Hartley Scholarship. Students in Mason County, West Virginia, as well as Gallia and Meigs counties in Ohio are eligible for financial assistance once they meet appropriate qualifications. Rodgers benefited and it’s not lost on him that he is now able to help the community that helped him.
“I’m thankful for those who had the foresight to set this up,” he said. “It does make a difference. You have a lot of loans to get through medical school, and even during residency you don’t make all that much, so every little bit helps. Help from others early on really inspires you to give back later in your career.”
Rodgers, whose family lives in the Point Pleasant area, went to Yale and then WVU School of Medicine. He followed that up with residency at WVU and then a fellowship in musculoskeletal imaging at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He worked for a radiology group in Charleston before joining Radiology, Inc. in early 2025, now working in Marshall Health Network.
He served two terms as President of the WV Radiological Society and is very involved nationally with the American College of Radiology, focusing on the sustainability of small and rural radiology practices.
The path that led him back to being able to put his education to work in the community that invested in him has been a rewarding one, Rodgers said.
“It’s very gratifying to be able to use all the skills I’ve learned to feel like I’ve helped people,” he said. “And to be able to work with others and use this knowledge back in my hometown, it’s just a day-by-day satisfaction.”
Rodgers chose to go into radiology because he’s always been interested in new technology, and he felt like figuring out a patient’s problem often is rooted in the results of an imaging scan.
“Diagnosing the patient has always been the most interesting part of medicine to me, and I’ve never regretted my choice,” he said. “I often interact with the family medicine doctor or the surgeon more than the patient, but I feel like I really make a difference every day.”
He credits his role model in residency, Dr. Bob Tallaksen, for fueling his interest in radiology and seeing what a difference that field can make in patient outcomes. Rodgers now gets to pay it forward by helping in the education process of Marshall medical students. It gives him the opportunity to inspire and counsel today’s students with hard-earned wisdom.
“Even when I was a student at Yale, I volunteered in the radiology department transporting patients,” he said. “It was good exposure for how things worked. I learned more about what I liked and what I didn’t. You’ve just got to spend time in the hospitals.”
