A brief history of the AAPM: Celebrating 60 years of contributions to medical physics practice and science (2018)

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Williamson and President-Elect Bruce Thomadsen asked us to write this brief commemorative history reviewing its formation in 1958 and presenting some of the more important activities and achievements over the ensuing 60 yr. Clearly, the intent was for this to be an organization concerned primarily with the professional needs of its members. The Steering Committee believed that the scientific needs of the members (meetings and journals in which they could present their research, etc.) would be met through other societies which had medical physicists as members, such as the RSNA, Nuclear Medicine Society, Health Physics Society, etc. However, 2 years later, the Board of Directors decided that the AAPM should have a strong scientific program in addition to the professional one. This was discussed at several meetings of the Board of Directors (see Fig. 1) and this culminated in 1969 with the publication of revised Articles of Incorporation within which the term “professional” had been removed. There were two reasons for doing this. The first was that we were, at the time, an Affiliated Society of the American Institute of Physics, and the AIP were not supposed to be involved with professional matters. The second being that we were applying for tax free-status with the Internal Revenue Service, for which we had to demonstrate that we were strictly a “scientific and educational” society. The growth of the organization in the years since it was formed in 1958 is illustrated in Fig. 2. Prior to 1969, all Annual Meetings of the AAPM had been held in conjunction with the RSNA Annual Meetings in Chicago. With the new emphasis on science, however, the Board felt that there was a need for the AAPM to have its own Annual Meeting during the summer months, with the meeting at the RSNA becoming a midyear meeting. The 1st standalone AAPM Annual Meeting was held in Washington DC in 1969 and the tradition of having the Annual Meeting in the summer and the midyear meeting in the winter at the RSNA continues to this day. The impact of the Annual Meetings can be ascertained from their growth (Fig. 3). The early meetings were held in hotels with conference facilities but, for the past several decades, they became too large for hotels and had to be held in Conference Centers. Most recent data show the overall attendance is over 4,000, with about 20% of attendees being from outside North America. This is by far the largest annual medical physics meeting in the world. Of special note is that all the presentations at the Annual Meeting are recorded and available free to all AAPM members through the Virtual Library, and to all others after a 1-year embargo. In 2012, the AAPM launched another meeting held annually, the Spring Clinical Meeting, which replaced the Annual Meeting of the American College of Medical Physics when the AAPM absorbed many of the functions of the ACMP when it was dissolved. As its title suggests, this is mainly a clinical physics meeting, leaving scientific, educational and professional matters to the Annual Meeting. Current attendance is about 400 each year. As with the Annual Meeting, all presentations are recorded and available free to all AAPM members through the Virtual Library, and to all others after a 1-year embargo. In order to meet the educational needs of members, annual Summer Schools on specific specialty topics were introduced in 1969, the 1st being held at Trinity College, Burlington VT. These Summer Schools are designed primarily for practicing medical physicists to keep them apprised of the latest developments. They are a continuing education opportunity with current attendance typically about 250 each year. Proceedings of all Summer Schools have been published and are available from Medical Physics Publishing, Madison, WI and, like the Annual and Spring Clinical Meetings, all the presentations can be viewed by AAPM members through the AAPM Virtual Library, and by all others with a 1-year embargo. With the early Annual Meetings and Summer Schools being devoted primarily to clinical, scientific and educational endeavors, members were concerned that the AAPM was not meeting their professional needs and consideration was given to formation of a separate professional society. This was discussed at length at the 1973 Annual Meeting but the decision to form a new professional organization was tabled and, instead, a new Professional Council was formed in 1973. At the same time the Science and Educational Councils were formed and many of the existing Committees were assigned to the appropriate Councils. Another major activity of the AAPM has been publication of two journals, Medical Physics and the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics. This is a by-monthly online only, open access journal, so is available for anyone to read for free. This makes it a truly international journal, especially since about 50% of the papers published are from outside North America. The JACMP was first published in 2000 by the American College of Medical Physics but was taken over by the AAPM in 2015. Currently, the JACMP website records over one million views/year. This is an average of about one visit/week for every medical physicist in the world! AAPM's educational contributions go beyond its Education Council and its associated task group reports and refresher courses presented at the Summer and Spring Meetings. For example, an important program developed by the AAPM was the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs (CAMPEP), which was formed and administered by the AAPM in the mid-1980s although, since 1994, it has been an independent organization. The stated purpose of CAMPEP is to review and accredit medical physics graduate and residency training programs. Currently, over 50 graduate programs and over 110 residency programs have received CAPMEP accreditation. Without question, CAMPEP has improved the teaching and training of medical physicists, and assures that medical physicists who graduate from these programs have being properly educated and trained. Indeed, graduation from a CAMPEP-accredited residency program is now a requirement for certification by the American Board of Radiology (ABR). Another outgrowth from the Education Council and AAPM members resulted in the 2008 formation of the Society of Directors of Academic Medical Physics Programs (SDAMPP). SDAMPP promotes coordination between academic Medical Physics programs, to establish best practices, to aid in monitoring the production of students relative to the job market, and to serve as a voice for academic program directors. SDAMPP along with the AAPM, CAMPEP, and ABR, aims to effectively and efficiently define, implement, and monitor the education of medical physicists so as to yield clinically qualified medical physicists for the healthcare environment. (Fig. 4) Educational activities of the AAPM also include the aspect of professionalism and leadership. The Medical Physics Leadership Academy Working Group currently oversees and organizes leadership and management training and experience specific to medical physicists. Training and experience will be accomplished through various meetings and activities all based on the Medical Physics Leadership Academy Curriculum, including collaboration with other related professional leadership programs. AAPM scientific research contributions are overseen by the Science Council and enhanced through the annual AAPM meetings, specialized Focused Research (FOReM) meetings, special sections within the Journals, as well as by the various committees and working groups. The Science Council examines specific areas of medical physics, especially those in emerging technologies, addresses scientific questions, and collates and assesses data, and is responsible for the vast majority of clinical and scientific guidance documents and Task Group Reports. For example, Science Council diligently studies the content of the annual summer meeting to both learn and provide suggestions for subsequent years. In order to stay at the forefront of medical physics, it is crucial that AAPM members are kept aware of emerging technologies in imaging science and therapy physics. For example, almost a decade ago, given the rising need for technology assessment, the Technology Assessment Committee (TAC) was initiated as a Presidential ad-hoc committee and ultimately incorporated into Science Council. Most recently, given the rapid rise of big data, radiomics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in imaging and therapy, Science Council is now creating an Ad Hoc Committee on Big Data, Radiomics, and Machine Learning in order to integrate the needs from both imaging and therapy medical physicists. For summaries of the role of the AAPM in the development of various scientific and technological advances, Medical Physics published “50th anniversary papers”, which can be found at http://aapm.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/issue/10.1002/(ISSN)2473-4209.50thAnniversaryPapers/. Constant review of an organization allows for continued growth. Currently an AAPM effort known as “Medical Physics 3.0” is focusing on goals for the clinical, educational, research, and administrative leadership aspects of medical physicists (http://www.aapm.org/org/charges/MP30.asp). It is clear that the role of the AAPM in the field of medical physics is expanding as is the coverage of the field itself, and now has its own headquarters building through which to enact this role. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare relative to the AAPM.