408 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1946 
EDUCATION 
In the future, the complexity of the physical phenomena involved 
in scientifically oriented investigations in physical medicine will 
require the services of trained physicists. Many hospitals have al- 
ready recognized this fact and have added physicists to their staffs. 
Some have installed biophysical laboratories, analogous to the bio- 
chemical laboratories, which have long since proved their value. 
The tasks of a physicist in such a position are numerous. Besides his 
own research, often in collaboration with his medical colleagues, he 
works out plans for treatment in special cases (e. g., deep therapy) ; 
he develops physical methods for special diagnostic and therapeutic 
applications; he keeps the medical staff informed about progress in 
physical research; he teaches (particularly in medical schools) ad- 
vanced and specialized courses; and he advises the medical research 
workers whenever they need physical methods and instruments in 
their own research. Inquiries for such physicists have already been 
received from hospitals, and the Institute has in operation plans for 
the training of physicists for the medical field. The training of 
physicists and engineers in this field will also be of interest to a num- 
ber of industries, in particular those concerned with medical instru- 
mentation. The anticipated expansion of this branch will require 
specialists, trained engineers, physicists, and biologists to an extent 
which perhaps may be comparable to the man-power requirements of 
the chemical pharmaceutical industries. 
To establish an efficient liaison between physics and medicine it is 
not merely sufficient for the physicist to know more about medicine 
and biology. It is also necessary for the physician to apply the physi- 
cal way of thinking to these problems and to acquire some knowledge 
of the available physical technological methods. The writer has re- 
peatedly found that the physician, thinking in biological rather than 
physical terms, does not always appreciate the necessity of an ob- 
jective physical dosimetric measurement. In short-wave diathermy, 
for instance, the subjective feeling of heat is frequently used as a 
criterion for dosage of the treatment and has been defended as “bio- 
logical dosimetry,” which was considered superior to “mechanistic 
physical dosimetry.” It is obvious that such a biological dosimetry 
contains two unknown variables: the physical field intensity and the 
physiological sensitivity of the patient. Two treatments on patients 
of different sensitivities can give entirely different results, although 
both patients indicate the same biological dose. A better training of 
the physician in physics (either premedical or postgraduate) and an 
additional training in instrumentation for the specialist in physical 
medicine are necessary not only for the physical quantitative approach 
