‘Never Settle’: David Gilmore Honored with Nuclear Medicine’s Top Award

The MCPHS program director’s 32-year career has shaped how technologists are trained—and how the profession itself is defined.

When David Gilmore found out he was receiving the 2025 SNMMI-TS Lifetime Achievement Award, he had a characteristically humble reaction: “It’s exciting, but it’s also kind of like—‘Oh my gosh, I’m not ready to retire, how can I be getting this?’” he said, laughing.

But age aside, few have done more to advance the specialty of nuclear medicine technology than Gilmore—through education, global collaboration, and an uncanny ability to see where the field is going before it gets there.

The award is the highest honor given by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging—Technologist Section, recognizing exceptional contributions to the field over the span of a career.

Professionally, the award is a capstone to 32 years of hard work. Personally, it’s more than that.

“It’s not just about what I’ve done—it’s about who I’ve met along the way,” Gilmore said. “This field gave me lifelong friendships all over the world. This award kind of pulls that all together.”

From Physics Class to Global Standards

Gilmore entered the field thanks to a high school physics teacher who suggested shadowing his wife, an imaging technologist. One hospital visit later, he was hooked.

Over the years, mentors nudged him toward research, corporate education, and eventually full-time teaching. Now director of the Nuclear Medicine Technology program in the School of Medical Imaging and Therapeutics at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), Gilmore has helped shape not just how technologists are trained, but how the field itself is defined around the world.

“There used to be no consistency—what ‘nuclear medicine’ meant in Southeast Asia wasn’t the same as in Europe or the U.S.,” he said. “But now we have shared standards, shared language, and even some shared credentials. There’s global unity and people can work across borders.”

Textbooks, Therapies, and the Future of Care

Another milestone? Gilmore co-authored the field’s leading textbook, “Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging,” now in its ninth edition. But he says the most profound shift he’s witnessed is how the profession has evolved—from simply diagnosing disease to actively treating it.

“Most of our patients already know they have something. Now we’re figuring out how to treat them,” he said. “With today’s isotopes, we can target cells based on what they’re made of. It’s not just about finding cancer—it’s about curing it.”

He uses prostate cancer as an example: “We’re moving away from one of three treatment options for everyone. Instead, we can pinpoint exactly what cells are involved and treat those directly. That changes everything. Now we can diagnose it and treat it all together, a term called theranostics."

This therapeutic evolution has reshaped nuclear medicine education, too.

“We’ve moved to case-based learning: ‘This patient presents with these symptoms—what are our imaging options? What’s the next treatment step?’” Gilmore explained. “It’s more like clinician-style medicine now, not just taking images and passing them on.”

Mentorship and the ‘Aha’ Moments

Despite the big-picture results, Gilmore remains grounded in the small moments—especially the ones involving students.

One that stuck with him was a student who was on the brink of failing until something clicked during a clinical rotation. While helping a patient through a lymph node imaging procedure, the patient asked her to stay with her through surgery.

“She told the student, ‘You remind me of my granddaughter,’ and just thanked her for being there,” Gilmore recalled. “It was such a human moment. That student went on to win the clinical award. It changed everything for her.”

These are the experiences Gilmore says you can’t teach. “They remind you why this work matters.”

Legacy in Progress

Now in his second stint at MCPHS, Gilmore oversees one of the fastest-growing nuclear medicine programs in the region. The incoming class has more than quadrupled in size since 2020, with students being snapped up by employers well before graduation.

“All 21 of our graduates had jobs by January,” he said. “Over half of the incoming 40 students already have scholarships and job offers from hospitals. The demand is unbelievable.”

With multiple program pathways—from 36-month accelerated tracks to a 15-month program designed for students with bachelor’s degrees already—the model Gilmore has helped build is opening doors for students who might never have considered nuclear medicine.

“People don’t wake up saying, ‘I want to go into nuclear medicine,’” he said. “We all find our way here from somewhere else. That’s why offering flexible pathways matters.”

‘Never Settle’

Gilmore doesn't hesitate for long when thinking about his life as a movie.

“Title? Maybe ‘Never Settle.’ And Ryan Gosling can play me,” he said, laughing. “If he can play Ken in the ‘Barbie’ movie, he can play a nuclear medicine technologist.”

Away from the lecture halls and conference stages, Gilmore finds balance in a surprising place: beekeeping. His urban hive houses about 60,000 bees and the process offers a kind of calm he doesn’t find anywhere else.

“You have to be slow, intentional, focused,” he said. “If you rush, you’ll miss the signs, and you’ll probably get stung.”

It’s a philosophy that’s bled into his teaching and mentoring style. “Working with students is a lot like working with bees,” he said. “You have to approach each one with patience, pay attention to the environment you’re creating, and give them space to do the work themselves. If you do that right, you end up with something that thrives.”

Gilmore carries that lesson beyond the hive and into his advice for those just starting out.

“Take chances. Take risks. You don’t realize until later how much it all pays off.”

And as for his legacy?

“I hope they say we changed the education model,” he said. “That we created multiple paths into this field—and made it stronger because of that.”