Frederick W. O'Brien, M.D.

Abstract

Frederick W. O'Brien, popular president of our Society for 1947, is the first representative from New England to be elected to this post. For those not acquainted with him and with his numerous contributions to radiology, a brief review of his characteristics and career will be of interest. It should be, too, an incentive to younger men entering this specialty. Dr. O'Brien's training and career indicate that a sound educational program was instituted from the start. He received his preparatory education in the public schools of Boston and his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College. He was graduated from Tufts Medical School in 1911, following which he practised general medicine for a period of three years. In 1914 he entered the field of radiology. For instruction in this new specialty he went to Vienna, where he studied under Kreusfuchs and Schüller, and on his return to Boston, he took further training under Arial W. George. The practice of radiology at that time was undergoing rapid changes. Deciding that further education would be of value, Dr. O'Brien became a graduate student at Harvard College, where he studied in the physical laboratory under Duane (radiation physics and biophysics) during 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1923. In 1918, Dr. O'Brien became an instructor in Tufts Medical College, and has been successively assistant professor, associate professor, professor, and, since 1941, professor emeritus in radiology in his mother institution. He has been visiting roentgenologist to the Cambridge Municipal Hospital since 1918 and chief of the Tumor Clinic at the Boston City Hospital since 1939. To name all of the positions which our new president has held would be to fill this short brief with more lists than is feasible. Some of the posts which will have special significance for our membership are as follows: president of the New England Roentgen Ray Society, 1924–25; president of the American Radium Society, 1940; Chancellor of the American College of Radiology, 1941; diplomate and trustee of the American Board of Radiology, 1940; member of the British Institute of Radiology since 1931. Dr. O'Brien is an excellent speaker and has taken part in many symposia, especially on the treatment of malignant disease. Carcinoma of the breast and cervix, two lesions which require thought and action in order that treatment of the patient will be best carried out, have been of special interest to him. I shall not list the articles which he has written or the addresses which he has given other than to say that he was the Janeway lecturer for the American Radium Society in 1946, when he spoke on the treatment of carcinoma of the cervix. Our president's main interest outside of medicine is his family. He is married to Sara Green and they have three children: a son, now interning at the Boston City Hospital, a second son in premedical school, and a daughter, a senior at Trinity College, Washington, D.C.