Brief histories of medical physics in Asia-Oceania

Abstract

The history of medical physics in Asia-Oceania goes back to the late nineteenth century when X-ray imaging was introduced, although medical physicists were not appointed until much later. Medical physics developed very quickly in some countries, but in others the socio-economic situation as such prevented it being established for many years. In others, the political situation and war has impeded its development. In many countries their medical physics history has not been well recorded and there is a danger that it will be lost to future generations. In this paper, brief histories of the development of medical physics in most countries in Asia-Oceania are presented by a large number of authors to serve as a record. The histories are necessarily brief; otherwise the paper would quickly turn into a book of hundreds of pages. The emphasis in each history as recorded here varies as the focus and culture of the countries as well as the length of their histories varies considerably.

The status of medical physics in radiotherapy in China

“…The number of patients per medical physicist is approximately 302 which is below the expected value of 400 for the developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region [27]. The number of Megavolt machines for radiotherapy per medical physicist is 0.58, which is less than the expectation value 0.92 for the developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region [27]. The ratio of Megavolt machines per million population is only 1.5, while the expected ratio is 6.7 for the developed countries, such as USA and Europe Countries [28,29].…”

“…In 2019, 3.92 million people (0.28% of total population in China) were diagnosed with cancer and 1.26 million people treated with radiotherapy [26]. The number of patients per medical physicist is approximately 302 which is below the expected value of 400 for the developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region [27]. The number of Megavolt machines for radiotherapy per medical physicist is 0.58, which is less than the expectation value 0.92 for the developed countries in the Asia-Pacific region [27].…”

“…The Chinese Society of Medical Physics (CSMP) was founded in 1981 and registered as a branch of the Chinese Society of Biomedical Engineering (CSBME). In 1986, CSMP became national members of the Asia-Oceania Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (AFOMP), the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), and the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) [15]. CSMP started to publish its official journal in 1981 which later became the Chinese Journal of Medical Physics in 1993.…”

Multiple authorship of scientific manuscripts

“…For a long list of authors, they may choose to be listed alphabetically. In the case of an article being a compilation of many sections produced by many authors, the authors may choose to be credited in the order in which their contribution appears-for example see [3].…”

There are too many medical physics journals!

“…And that the rate of increase has been increasing. This is not surprising as the number of medical physicists has risen in response to the development of new radiotherapy treatments and the introduction of new diagnostic equipment and the introduction of modern medicine into developing countries [3]. In turn these developments have been driven by the research efforts of the equipment manufacturers and the users of the new equipment and by medical physics students/registrars completing their It appears that if a journal is published on behalf of the Association, College, Institute, Organisation, Society, Union or Federation of medical physicists from a particular nation (or group of nations) that the journal is legitimately scientific and has the appropriate standing within the scientific community.…”