| Bulletin
1/2005 ---------- John Cameron ---------- andere Bulletins / d'autres bulletins / altri bolletini / other bulletins |
 John
Cameron, Professor Emeritus of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin died at age 82 on March 16, 2005. He was founding Chair of the
Department of Medical Physics at the University of Wisconsin, and Charter Member and Past President of the
American Association of Physicists in Medicine. John described himself as a simple physicist from the small rural community of Superior, Wisconsin, near the Canadian border. He served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, working on a radar project, then attended the University of Chicago, earning a degree in mathematics in 1947. John completed a Doctorate in Physics at the University of Wisconsin in 1952 under Professor Ray Herb (inventor of the tandem Van de Graaff and founder of National Electrostatics Corporation).After junior staff appointments at Universidad de São Paulo and at University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Cameron returned to the University of Wisconsin in 1958, with a joint appointment in Physics and Radiology. He rapidly gathered a large group of medical physicists, and the Department of Medical Physics was created in 1981, the first such department in the United States. A distinguished group of faculty members, including Charles Mistretta (the John R. Cameron Professor of Medical Physics and Radiology), became world leaders in such fields as digital subtraction angiography, bone mineral analysis and radiation therapy. John’s personal contributions to medical physics included a trans-illumination device for diagnosis of hydrocephalus, a bone mineral absorption device, thermoluminescence dosimetry , the Ardran-Crookes “Wisconsin” test cassette, and a lifelong commitment to quality assurance in radiology. The Department of Medical Physics under John Cameron included Herb Attix, Jack Fowler, Heinz Barschall, Jan van de Geijn and Jim Sorenson. The department has trained hundreds of medical physics students including six AAPM national presidents. The Department also served as an incubator for corporations including RMI (now Gammex/RMI), Standard Imaging, Lunar Radiation (now GE-Lunar), Geometrics, Medical Physics Publishing, and TomoTherapy, Inc. Especially after retirement, John Cameron got involved in educating the public on radiation issues: the "Virtual Radiation Museum" and the BERT ("Background Equivalent Radiation Time") concept fall into this category. He was also a firm believer in radiation hormesis, and defended his views on many occasions with both, profound knowledge, and provoking esprit. John is survived by his wife Von, three siblings and two daughters. His kindness, generosity, scientific curiosity and humour will be remembered by all who knew him. Steven J. Goetsch (San Diego) Source: SGSMP-Bulletin April 2005. |
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