Clinical engineering in Poland

Abstract Clinical (also named medical) engineering and medical physics in Poland have the common roots in the Radium Institute established in Warsaw in 1932, thanks to the initiative of Maria Sklodowska-Curie, the Nobel Laureate in 1903 and 1911. The assistant and collaborator of Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Prof. Cezary Pawlowski has founded in 1934 the Physics Department of the Radium Institute and organized first courses on medical physics and biomedical engineering. After the World War II, in 1946 graduate studies were started at the Warsaw University of Technology, as the world’s first regular academic courses in electromedical engineering, organized by Prof. Pawlowski. Later on, Prof. Pawlowski, Prof. Juliusz Keller, and Prof. S. Nowosielski started the multidisciplinary program of the study, which consisted of electrical engineering, basic knowledge in medicine, and radiology. The graduates have started collaboration with medical doctors in clinics as well as in the construction of medical equipment.