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Kenneth Ray Hogstrom KENNETH RAY HOGSTROM

Occupation :
Medical physicist specializing in radiation oncology

Born :
Houston , Texas
June 15, 1948

Education :
University of Houston, BS in Physics, 1970
University of Houston, MS in Physics, 1972
Rice University, PhD in Physics 1976

Certifications :

American Board of Radiology, Therapeutic Radiological Physics, 1992

Career :

Born in 1948 in Houston, Texas, Dr. Hogstrom received his M.S. in Physics from the University of Houston in 1972. Following a short period of active duty as an officer in the Army Field Artillery in Spring 1973, Dr. Alfred Smith hired Dr. Hogstrom to work on the neutron therapy project at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute (1973-4). As part of that position, he published his first paper in Medical Physics, “ Computer Dosimetry for Flattened and Wedged Fast Neutron Beams,” which received the 1976 AAPM Farrington Daniels Award. Returning to Rice University Bonner Lab in Fall 1974, he received his Ph.D. in Physics from Rice University in 1976.

In August 1976, he rejoined Dr. Smith as a Research Scientist at the University of New Mexico, and he was stationed in Los Alamos, where he worked as a medical physicist on the pion therapy project. There he published many clinical physics papers dealing with pion dose distributions, immobilization, 3D conformal therapy, in-vivo dosimetry, and methods of dose calculation. His 1980 paper in Physics and Medicine and Biology “ Calculation of Pion Dose Distributions in Water” led to his subsequent major work on electron beam transport.

In August 1979, Dr. Hogstrom returned to his hometown, accepting a position as Assistant Professor at M. D. Anderson in the Department of Physics headed by Dr. Robert Shalek. Here, he worked in the Section of Clinical Physics under the leadership of Dr. Peter Almond until 1985. In 1985, following Dr. Shalek’s retirement, the Department of Physics was fragmented, and Dr. Hogstrom served as the first chair of the new Department of Radiation Physics (1985-2001). He held the P.H. and Fay Etta Robinson Distinguished Professorship in Cancer Research from 1990-2004. He retired from M. D. Anderson Cancer Center as Professor Emeritus in 2004 after 25 years of service. In Fall 2004 he accepted the position of Professor and Director of the Medical Physics and Health Physics Program in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University and Chief of Physics at Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center in Baton Rouge, LA.

Education was a major part of Dr. Hogstrom’s career. At M. D. Anderson, he mentored 7 postdoctoral fellows, 3 PhD students, and 10 MS students over his 25-year career. He taught multiple courses in The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston, and from 1985-2004, he served as Director of the Medical Physics Program. With the assistance of Dr. William Hanson, John Horton, Art Boyer, George Starkschall, Isaac Rosen, John Hazle, Jose Bencomo, Ed Jackson, and other key faculty, the Program’s major accomplishments were establishing the PhD in Medical Physics Program, achieving CAMPEP accreditation for both the MS and PhD programs, and establishing the Robert J. Shalek Fellowship Fund. Also, he was very active in continuing education though leading the M D Anderson short courses in radiological physics program initiated years earlier by Dr. Robert Shalek, Dr. Peter Almond, Dr. Marilyn Stovall, and Mr. Vince Sampiere. He directed the “Electron Pencil-Beam Dose Algorithms for Treatment Planning” course (1982-1998) and the “Dosimetry of High Energy Electron and X-ray Machines” course (1986-2001) that originated in 1971 by Dr. Peter Almond. He has taught electron beam physics regularly in AAPM and ACMP symposia, summer schools, and review courses, his contributions to AAPM summer schools being the most rewarding. After serving as the vice-chair of the AAPM Commission on Accreditation, he led the first CAMPEP Residency Education Program Review Committee to develop guidelines for accreditation of medical physics residency programs and to accredit the early programs. For these and other contributions, he was awarded the 1995 Faculty Achievement Award in Education at M. D. Anderson.

Dr. Hogstrom has published over 80 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and 40 book chapters and reports from scientific symposia. The research for which he is best known, successfully applied radiation transport to develop methods and techniques of dose measurement, dose calculation, treatment planning, treatment delivery, and quality assurance techniques for clinical electron beam therapy. He published a seminal paper “Electron Beam Dose Calculation” in Physics in Medicine and Biology in 1981. His works contributed significantly to the growth of electron therapy in the 1980s. For over 25 years, the Hogstrom or similar pencil-beam algorithms have been the primary clinical treatment-planning tool for electron treatment planning. Based on this work, Dr. Hogstrom received the Becton-Dickinson Career Achievement Award in 1988. In the 1990s he contributed to the AAPM Task Group 25’s standardization of electron dosimetry and to the emergence of 3D electron beam dosimety. Together with Dr. George Starkschall, a team at M D Anderson developed and applied the first practical planning and delivery systems for electron conformal therapy using bolus. In the early 2000s he led the development of an early prototype, electron multileaf collimator as part of a vision of an accessory-less high-energy electron and x-ray radiotherapy machine.

Dr. Hogstrom has been active in supporting medical physics professional activities through the AAPM, ACMP, and related professional societies. His major activities have been in serving as AAPM President in 2000, where he improved the association’s long range planning, grew relations with our allied health professional colleagues through actions such as assisting in forming the Radiotherapy Service Engineers Association (RSEA), and established the Summer Undergraduate Fellowship Program to address issues of manpower and student recruitment. He also was active with the American College of Medical Physics, where he led the task group that reported on “ Survey of Physics Resources for Radiation Oncology Special Procedures” in 1998, a supplement to the first Abt report. With Dr. John Horton, an ACMP and AAPM sponsored lecture series was published in the 1999 book entitled “Introduction to the Professional Aspects of Medical Physics.” The ACMP appointed Dr. Hogstrom to the American Board of Medical Physics where he examined candidates (1994-1999) and served as Vice-Chair (2000-2001). In that capacity, Dr. Hogstrom crafted a plan and led efforts that resolved a major rift between medical physicists with the adoption of the present ABR-ABMP Working Agreement. He is a Fellow of the AAPM and ACMP, and he received the AAPM William D. Coolidge Award in 2003 and the ACMP Marvin M. D. Williams Award in 2004.

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