In March of 1979, Dr. Ellet H. Drake began working with Dr. Leon Goldman to establish an American society to encourage physicians and scientists to exchange knowledge, explore new uses for present equipment, and generate new medical lasers and accessories. They invited 280 outstanding physicians and scientists from all over the world to participate in an organizational meeting held in San Diego in January, 1981, and as a tribute to Dr. Goldman, the father of laser medicine in the United States, over half of them accepted our invitation and paid their own expenses to come to this meeting. The seed money necessary to establish the group was given to us by Mr. William B. Mark through the A. Ward Ford Institute. Mr. Mark died in October, 1980, and each year the A. Ward Ford Foundation presents an award in his honor to the individual considered by the Awards Committee of the Society to have made an outstanding contribution to laser medicine. The first of these awards was presented in 1982 to Dr. Goldman at the Annual Conference at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
It was the dream of the founders that this organization be unique and include in addition to physicians/clinicians, outstanding research individuals in the areas of biophysics, biochemistry, biomedical engineering, laser biology and laser safety. There was also a small group of individuals from industry included in the original charter membership. The idea was an immediate success with the Society showing a growth rate of approximately 40% per year during the first eight years with a steady increase in the number and size of commercial exhibits at the Annual Conferences. From the beginning, the board established the fact that education both for physicians and the lay public should be a prime objective and asked their "Committee on Standards of Training and Practice" to formulate guidelines to aid hospital and clinic staffs in the area of credentialing. At the same time, it was decided that the Society itself would not be an active participant in the credentialing procedure. Another committee involved with post graduate education established additional guidelines for those wishing to develop laser short courses. Their recommendations were quite specific both as to the various levels of complexity and also for the suggested content at each level.
Honorary membership was bestowed upon selected individuals outside of the United States who had established worldwide reputation in the field of laser medical applications. Among these were Professor Peter Wolf Ascher, Kazuhiko Atsumi, Jean-Marc Brunetaud, M.D., Professor Dr. Kurt Burian, Jean-Francois Dumon, M.D., Professor Dr. med. A. Hofstetter, Professor Isaac Kaplan, Shigenobu Mihashi, M.D., Jia-Nan Qin, M.D., the late Professor Carlo Sacchi, Professor Wilhelm Waidelich, Oleg Skobelkin, and Uang Yi Gun. The International Merit Award was bestowed upon Peter Kiefhaber of München, Germany. Other laser immortals elected to the prestigious group of Honorary Members were Theodore H. Maiman, Ph.D., C. Kumar N. Patel, Ph.D., Arthur L. Schawlow, Ph.D., and Charles H. Townes. The first nurses were included in 1983 and by 1986 their number had reached a point where they were able to establish a section of the Society and were granted a position on the board.
At the time of the organization of the Society two of its members Drs. Billie Aronoff and Eugene Friedman were co-editing a successful laser journal,
Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, published by Alan R. Liss of New York. This publication has continued to be the official organ of the Society under the current editorship of
Dr. J. Stuart Nelson.
Dr. Leon Goldman was the original editor of the Society's "Newsletter". Among innovations established by Dr. Goldman was the inclusion of a "job wanted" section that printed resumes without charge to those seeking employment without regard to whether or not they were Society members. He also would include capsule accounts from recent literature with just enough information given to arouse interest among the readers to do additional study in that particular area. After seven years, the editorship was taken over by Ann Siemens of the Beckman Laser Institute and finally this responsibility was transferred to the home office in Wausau, Wisconsin.
The Society has continued to grow with conference registrations continually recorded at over
2,800 together with approximately 160 commercial exhibits.
The home office has remained in Wausau and now has
eight employees.
