A Personal History of Nuclear Medicine (PDF)

A pioneer in nuclear medicine and past president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, Professor Henry N. Wagner Jr., MD has spent nearly five decades helping to define and promote the specialty. His groundbreaking work in the applications of nuclear medicine to pulmonary and coronary artery disease and his studies of brain chemistry with radio-labelled tracers have led to significant advances in these fields. Wagner is the director of the Division of Radiation Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he has worked since 1958. He is a professor emeritus of radiology and radiological sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a professor of environmental health sciences at the School of Hygiene and Public Health. A prolific researcher and writer, Wagner is author or co-author of more than 800 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles, books and chapters. He is a member of several editorial boards and many medical and radiological societies, and an honorary member of the British Institute of Radiology (2000).

From the reviews:

"This is a personal memoir of Henry N. Wagner, Jr., MD, perhaps the most influential person in the development of clinical nuclear medicine worldwide. There has been almost no one of significance in nuclear medicine that Dr. Wagner has not interacted with in some capacity over his five-decade career in nuclear medicine. This book is a chronicle of those interactions and a description of the evolution of nuclear medicine over the period. This is a superb description of the evolution of nuclear medicine over five decades. It serves not only as a description of events and people in nuclear medicine, but also as a model for how histories should be constructed in other fields from the memoirs of influential individuals. There is no comparable book that addresses this evolution in nuclear medicine. This book is recommended for anyone interested in how curiosity about potential applications of a new science (atomic energy in this case) can be developed in medicine." (William R. Hendee, DOODY REVIEW FROM Doody Enterprises, Inc. - COPYRIGHT 2007)

"The book is of rigorous historical value. Henry N. Wagner had a very long career characterised by the excellence of his research … . he is certainly in a good position to provide an evidence-based and critically constructed history of nuclear medicine … . This is a very well written story of a life intensely lived, providing evidence that nuclear medicine can be, indeed … a great passion. Therefore, I strongly recommend this book to both expert and young nuclear physicians … ." (L. Mansi, European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Vol. 34 (3), 2007)