Thomas F Heston

Tom Heston MD earned his MD at St. Louis University and completed post-grad training at Duke, Oregon Health Sciences, University of Washington, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, and the American College of Nuclear Medicine.

Tom Heston was born at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. Growing up in Spokane, his major interests at the time in addition to school were related to music. He attended the Tanglewood Summer program run by the brass section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, played in jazz and concert school bands, and was 1st chair (trumpet) in the Spokane city wide Youth Orchestra. He graduated from Lewis and Clark High School.

After high school, Heston moved to Seattle to study at the University of Washington where he majored in music theory and history, and got accepted into the music composition program. He joined the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and worked there as a cook and treasurer. After a brief break to work on a boat in Alaska, he graduated from college in 1987.

After a year of graduate studies in nutrition at the University of Washington, Heston began medical school in St. Louis at St. Louis University School of Medicine. His major influences during medical school were Dr. Lawrence Lewis, the director of the Emergency Department, and Dr. James Littlefied. Both were enthusiastic about the practice of medicine and the value of devoting their professional lives to the service of people in need of medical care. After graduating with a Distinction in Research, Heston applied for a residency in family medicine, with the plan to return to the Spokane, Washington region to practice medicine.

Duke University accepted Heston into their family medicine residency program at Fayetteville, North Carolina. During his internship year, a family member had a significant decline in health, prompting a return to the Northwest to finish residency training. As a result, Heston finished his training in family medicine at the University of Washington (Vancouver) and in addition completed a nuclear medicine residency at Oregon Health Sciences University.

Heston then moved to Kellogg, Idaho, where he worked at the Mountain Health Care medical clinic and Shoshone Medical Center . This small, rural, remote town had a service area of about 15,000 people and only primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. During his initial years in Kellogg, Heston practice the full range of rural family practice including obstetrics, emergency medicine, and geriatrics.

After several years of dedicated family medicine practice, Heston started the first nuclear medicine program in Kellogg and satellite clinics at several surrounding communities. He also was the first physician to perform a PET scan in Idaho north of the Boise Metropolitan area, the first (or possibly one of the first) physicians in all of Idaho to be certified in Nuclear Cardiology, and in the first group of physicians in Idaho to be awarded Fellowship status by the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology.

In 2008, Heston underwent additional fellowship training in PET/CT at Johns Hopkins Hospital where he studied under Drs. Richard Wahl, Frank Bengel, and Harvey Zeissman. During the 2008 to 2009 academic year, Heston lived in Owings Mills, and occasionally rode the metro with Dr. Ben Carson.

At the end of 2009, Heston was asked by Wahl to serve as the medical director for the Tawam Molecular Imaging Centre, and help get the program up and running. The center is the first PET/CT program in Al Ain, UAE. It is the first PET/CT program on the Tawam Hospital campus, which is the primary cancer hospital in the United Arab Emirates. Heston served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University and as the medical director for the Tawam Molecular Imaging Centre in 2010 to 2011. During this time he performed the first PET myocardial perfusion scan in the United Arab Emirates, served as an adjunct assistant professor with Johns Hopkins, and performed the first dual isotope single acquisition (FDG/NaF) PET scan in the region.

Dr. Tom Heston currently practices family and nuclear medicine in the Pacific Northwest.