Introduction to the 50^th golden anniversary issue of Medical Physics

The first issue of Medical Physics was published in January of 1974, when Richard Nixon was president of the United States, the Vietnam War was winding down, and the charge-coupled device was developed. The journal has grown over the years from Volume 1, which had 42 articles in 1974 to Volume 50, which is projected to include 612 articles in 2023 – a growth of a factor of almost 15. The early journal published 6 issues per year in print only, and we now publish 12 issues per year both in hard copy and on-line. In 1974 there were about 1000 members of the AAPM, and in 2023 we are approaching 10 000 members. Early Medical Physics volumes published scientific articles but also served to document AAPM activities, so it doubled as a terse newsletter. The current Medical Physics is an international journal which is recognized as an official journal of the AAPM, the Canadian Organization of Medical Physics, and the International Organization of Medical Physics. This supplemental issue commemorates the journal's 50th year of publishing. Starting with a first-hand account of journal activities by Chris Marshall, this issue includes perspectives from all living past and present Medical Physics editors, descriptions of exciting research developments by medical physicists with personal accounts of their start in the field, dating back to the 1970′s and 1980′s, and vignettes of AAPM activities by the past 25 AAPM presidents. We also have an interesting article on women in medical physics, and a long-term perspective from Angela Keyser, who has been AAPM Executive Director for almost 20 years. This supplemental issue serves as a celebration of the Journal's 50 years in service to the medical physics community, but also recognizes the core stakeholders of Medical Physics: our readers, authors, and the thousands of scientists who have served as referees and editors. Thank you!