Frequently, I remind graduate students that the history of medical physics did not begin on the day they entered the field. I can understand why many students have little understanding of the evolution of medical physics and how major challenges of the past were solved and by whom. Students are taught current protocols and the principles of contemporary technologies, but not how these procedures and technologies were developed and how they fulfilled unmet clinical needs. Because they lack knowledge of the discipline's history, students often have trouble projecting forward to predict how current procedures and technologies may change to expand fundamental knowledge and improve patient care. The result is medical physics education as a "snapshot" in time, with too little knowledge of the past and too little ability to project into the future.
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