We asked AAPM (American Association of Phyicists in Medicine) to send us list of institutes which have education program of medical physicists, and obtained the names of 40 institutes. Among them,19 institutes sent us detailed information. All of them were graduated courses (master courses or doctor courses). Faculties of the courses belong to field of medicine, health science, natural science, engineering, technology, cancer center, and public health graduated course. The courses are on radiology, radiation oncology, radiation sciences, nuclear engineering, biological physics, radiological physics and living state physics.
We have extracted from them on: 1. definition and philosophy of medical p h ysics,2. outine of the courses,3. qualification for entrance to the courses,4. curriculum,5. study theme, and 6. jobs after the courses. Research activities in the courses are as follows 1. radiation therapy,2. image diagnosis,3. biology,4. biological physics,5. radiology, and 6. medical engineering.
There are now 3300 medical physicists in USA, but the number is not sufficient. The courses do not bring enough number of medical physicists for their needs. Needs are so many because of recent growing up of new technology on advanced medical instruments and modalities. So, medical physicists seem to be very promising professoin in USA. We propose the graduated courses of medical physics here in Japan based on extended 4 years faculties for bachelors on radiological technology instead of 3 years colleges for radiological technicians.

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We studied the influence of follow-up levels on survival and disease-free curves in 100patients with tongue carcinoma. According to the follow-up methods two levels were defined. The Level 1 data were defined as those obtained under condition that no systematic follow-up was performed. In this level the follow-up data were acquired by patient charts only. The Level 2 data were defined as those obtained after making meticulous follow-up. In this level the follow-up data were acquired by direct contact with the patients or family physicians, or by copies of death certificates, etc. As a result of follow-up, complete followup data were obtained for all but one patient, who was missed after a 15-year period of no evidence of disease. For aforementioned two levels' data, analyses of survival and diseasefree rates were performed with the Kaplan-Meier method. Consequently, we could get following results. First the more complete follow-up data were, the lower the survival rates. Second the disease-free rates were not changed with completing follow-up. Using the generalized Wilcoxon test and logrank test, their trend were proved statistically. This study indicates that data with incomplete follow-up may be used only for interim analysis, but not for survival analysis.

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