History of Japan Society of Medical Physics

Abstract

Japan Society of Medical Physics (JSMP) was first founded on 1961 March as a sub-organization of Japan Radiological Society (JRS) and became an independent society in 2000. The history of the Society could be divided five periods: 1) Pre-historical period (–1961), 2) Establishment period (1961–1970), 3) Development period (1970–1980), 4) Stable period (1980–2000), and 5) Second development period (2000–present).
In the 1st period, several physicists carried out individually research or practice in medical institution until the Society was established. In the second period, the Society established to hold scientific meetings twice a year, one in the spring as a part of JRS annual meeting, while the other in the autumn as an independent meeting.
In the 3rd period, owing to development of radiological equipment such as CT and extension of computer utilization, the Society had rapidly grown up from approximately 200 members to 700. However, since 1980 the number of memberships was almost steady for two decades. During the 4th period, JRS started to certify medical physicists with the help of our society in 1987, and World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering was held in Kyoto (1991).
The 5th period began with independence of the Society from JRS in 2000. Since then the number of memberships has been growing rapidly to approximately 1800. There are several reasons for rapid growth in the last decade. One reason is that importance of medical physics has been recognized with the several radiotherapy accidents due to lack of QA, which occurred around 2000.
JSMP now organizes Japanese Board of Medical Physics Certification (JBMP) with JRS, and JBMP certifies medical physicist. JSMP publishes Japanese Journal of Medical Physics (JJMP) four times a year. Because JJMP is published mainly in Japanese, JSMP publishes Radiological Physics and Technology (RPT) in English with Japanese Society of Radiological Technology (JSRT) twice a year.