Historical Article
Nuclear Physicist & Foundation Head of Medical Physics in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH), Perth, Australia (1939-2011)
ACPSEM President 1983 – 85
John Leo Black BSc[Hons] MSc DPhil DSc FACPSEM
Dr John Black was born in Melbourne, Victoria in May 1939 and spent the first twenty years of his life in that city.
He was educated at Essendon High School and showed special interest in science subjects, mathematics and foreign languages.
He entered Melbourne University with a Daffyd Lewis Trust scholarship in 1957 to study for a science degree and was awarded the Bachelor of Science degree with first class honours in 1960. He shared the Victorian Exhibition for Physics with another graduate.
During the following two years he carried out research in low energy nuclear physics and was awarded the Master of Science degree in 1962.
Based on his university education, Dr Black was awarded the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Overseas Research Scholarship for study leading to a D.Phil. in nuclear physics at Oxford University. His D.Phil. degree was conferred in October 1965.
Dr Black’s first two-year appointment was to a Research Associate in Nuclear Physics post at Stanford University, California, in the United States. There he carried out research in coulomb excitation and the giant dipole resonance using the 15 MeV tandem accelerator.
His second position was at the Australian National University Institute of Advanced Studies, where he worked from 1967 until early in 1971. His research work covered nuclear spectroscopy, isobaric analogue states, high energy gamma ray spectroscopy and coulomb excitation with heavy ions.
In late January 1971 he took up a position as hospital physicist at the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia, and has remained until the present time.
In 1972, the Board of Management created a formal Department of Biophysics in the Clinical Division of the hospital and Dr. Black was invited at that time to assume the position of permanent Head of Department.
The Department has developed over the years and staff now totals about 40. The Department is structured around four divisions – scientific computing, scientific applications and clinical physics, bioelectronics, and bioengineering. Scientific and technical services are provided to all clinical departments of the SCGH.
At the present time Dr Black is working in a seconded position as Director, Computing and Information Management. He will return to his position as Head of Biophysics in August 1988, following a period of study leave at University College Hospital in London.
Dr Black’s main research interests have been in vector cartographic techniques for implanted cardiac pacemaker assessment, ophthalmology (EOG and ERG), clinical neurophysiology, and learning disability in children. Published papers and presentations at national or international meetings total up to 143. Dr Black was awarded the D.Sc. degree in 1986 by the University of Western Australia for his original contributions in nuclear physics and physics and engineering in medicine.
Dr Black was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1975-76 and a Fulbright Scholarship 1965-67. He is a Fellow of the Australasian College of Physical Scientists in Medicine, the Australian Institute of Physics, a member of the ANZ Society of Nuclear Medicine and holds Associate Membership in the Australian Association of Neurologists and the Royal Australasian College of Radiologists. He also has a Certificate of Fluency in German from the Perth Technical College. He is listed in Who’s Who in the World and 5000 Personalities of the World.
Dr Black was one of the founder members of the College and has consistently shown strong interest and support. He has always had the success of the College at heart and is keen to see all scientists and engineers in medicine working cohesively to help achieve our most important goal – a high standard of patient care in Australian and New Zealand hospitals and other health care institutions. The application and development of high technology in medicine is vital in the achievement of this goal. Dr Black feels that the College members have a great deal to offer in this regard and looks forward to a bright future for the College and its members.
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John Black Obituary
(Prepared by Dr Roger Price PhD, Head Medical Technology & Physics Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Perth.)
When John Black created the (then) Biophysics Department in SCGH in 1972, the CT scanner had only just been invented, providing 80×80 pixelated cranial images following 11 minutes of painstaking scanning (head enveloped in a waterbag) plus algebraic reconstruction. Scientific computing in hospitals was virtually unknown and most sophisticated equipment for innovative measurement of human physiology had to be designed and constructed in-house. Nuclear medicine had only recently been recognised as an independent discipline.
Physics and its high priests still carried the mystique of stunning contributions to the war effort, the space race and so on, in the ‘century of physics’. For some classically-trained physicists, the modern technologically advanced teaching hospital (owing much to developments in the UK following WWII) was a laboratory as exciting as any found on a university campus. To misquote Galileo, opportunities if not infinite were certainly very large. John had prepared for the task. Graduating with first class honours from Melbourne University in 1960 as its top physics student he proceeded to MSc studies in low-energy nuclear physics, leading to further postgraduate studies at Oxford University and a DPhil in 1965, supported by a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Overseas Scholarship. The next year a Fulbright Scholarship carried him to a postdoc at Stanford. There he carried out research on coulomb excitations and giant dipole resonances, using their 15 MeV tandem accelerator. This was followed by further research in nuclear physics at the ANU. In 1971 he responded to a vacancy in the fledgling Nuclear Medicine Department of SCGH. This was a defining career move.
John had arrived in a city splendidly isolated by its geography; part of the impossibly long road across the Nullarbor was not to be bitumized until 1976. However, Perth was a veritable powerhouse for physicists. Medical Physics had been established at the venerable Royal Perth Hospital in 1959, mainly to support radiation therapy. However the scope and magnitude of its activities had since expanded steadily. Physics at the University of Western Australia had earned an enviable international reputation – seminal discoveries in critical phenomena, surface physics, geochronology and X-ray crystallography, to name a few, had promoted it to the big league. John brought a purposive ‘larger-than-life’ energy to his new mission. He decided to build a department complementary to that of RPH. In addition to the traditional services to clinicians, he would introduce innovative technologies for vision electrophysiology (EOG, ERG), vector cardiography (cardiac pacemaking) and neurophysiology. He would also become one of the Australian pioneers of scientific computing in the hospital setting. Baby- boomer physicists fondly recall the impact of DEC minicomputers in their laboratories, and indeed these proved to be ideal for the fledgling digital control and computational applications being developed in major medical physics laboratories. Consequently, several of ‘Charlies’ clinical departments were able to explore the possibilities of the iconic DEC 11/23 bar-fridge sized minicomputer; substantially assembled in-house by Biophysics, with its dinner-plate floppy disc storage and powerful operating system. For both of Perth’s medical physics departments the ‘70s were a blur – expanding workforces, new clinical services complemented by research programs and students. Each also fostered equally innovative and expanding bioengineering divisions. John was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1975. The early ‘80s saw the commissioning of a major new space for his department in the new SCGH ‘G’ tower block, that forms the core of ‘Charlies’ to this day. An active research program saw publications in neurology (including childhood learning disabilities), cardiology and vision science. An exemplar of his vision was a formidable bunker set aside for a cyclotron in the new department; a goal achieved finally in 2003. John Black was awarded a DSc from the University of WA in 1986. A founder member of the ACPSEM, he was its President from 1983-85.
John retired in 1994. He and his wife Margaret embarked on a number of retirement projects, often involving travel. After living for several years in the south west of Western Australia they finally settled in Queensland. John passed away in May and is succeeded by his wife and two children. His contribution to the profession that informed his life’s work secured the role and recognition of medical physics and bioengineering in Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, and through the College contributed to advancing medical physics at a national level; earning the gratitude of those who succeeded him.
Dr Roger Price, 2011
