The International Congress of Medical Physics will honor Professor Emeritus Colin Orton, Ph.D., for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of medical physics and health care at its 50th annual meeting, Sept. 1-4, in Brighton, England.
The IOMP represents medical physics associations in 80 countries. Posters of the 50 most important contributors to medical physics will be on display on the 50th anniversary of the formation of the organization. Dr. Orton was one of 21 medical physicists nominated by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine for consideration. Eleven of the AAPM's nominees were selected by the IOMP.
"I feel very fortunate to have been selected, since I certainly would have selected many of my colleagues ahead of me, so I feel that this is one of the most important honors I have received, right up there with the Lifetime Achievement Award I received several years ago from WSU," he said.
Dr. Orton retired from the Wayne State University School of Medicine in 2003 as professor of Radiation Oncology. He joined the faculty in 1981, and received the School of Medicine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. School of Medicine Professor of Radiation Oncology Jay Burmeister, Ph.D., is among his mentees.
"I don't think that there is any question that Colin deserves to be mentioned among the dozen or so individuals who had the most profound impact on the profession of medical physics over the last 50 years," said Dr. Burmeister, chief of Physics at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit. "Colin's career has been remarkable and incredibly influential. This is exhibited by numerous leadership roles throughout the medical physics profession and awards for lifetime achievement within it. But it may be even more evident in the legacy of trainees that continues to spread in the wake of his career. He trained and mentored hundreds of medical physicists over several decades and those trainees continue to pass on his teaching and his enthusiasm for medical physics. His career has either directly or indirectly influenced some tremendous fraction of medical physicists practicing today."
Among them is WSU graduate school alumnus Gary Ezzell, Ph.D., chief of Physics at The Mayo Clinic in Arizona, and president of the AAPM in 2012.
"He is not only a superbly competent scientist and educator, he is the consummate gentleman, always much more concerned with advancing the field and his students' careers than in calling attention to himself," Dr. Ezzell said of Dr. Orton.
The AAPM is a scientific and professional organization founded in 1958 and made up of more than 7,500 scientists whose clinical practice is dedicated to ensuring accuracy, safety and quality in the use of radiation in medical procedures such as medical imaging and radiation therapy. Dr. Orton received the organization's William D. Coolidge Award, its highest honor, in 1993, given annually to a member who has exhibited a distinguished career in medical physics and who has exerted a significant impact on the practice of medical physics.
He served as editor of the journal Medical Physics, the leading journal of the profession, from 1997 to 2004. He also served as president of the IOMP from 1997 to 2000, and president of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine from 2003 to 2006.
Dr. Orton received his doctorate in 1965 from the University of London, and was elected president of the AAPM in 1981.