The Management of Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy for Cancer

Abstract

“Physicians,” said Lord Francis Bacon, “are some of them so pleasing, and so conformable to the Humour of the Patient as they press not the true cure of the Disease; And some other are so Regular in proceeding according to Art, for the Disease, as they respect not sufficiently the Condition of the Patient.” Among the former are those practitioners with the true bedside manner, while among the latter will be numbered far too many radiation therapists. Radiation therapy is an art. It is one of the newer arts, founded upon one of the newer branches of science—radiation physics—and enormously indebted to those men and women upon whose researches has been erected so imposing an edifice. So impressive is the science, so erudite its background, so learned its exposition, that it is little wonder that those who practise the art based upon it are so dazzled by its glory that they fail to perceive some of its clinical applications. Briefly stated, the thesis of this essay is this: Fascinated and impressed by such p...