Ten years after Hans Svensson started the first ESTRO course (‘Radiation Physics for Clinical Radiotherapy’, at Leuven, Belgium, in 1985) I had the chance to join this iconic course as a teacher (1995-2005). During the later years, I was co-director with Dominique Huyskens.

I was a teacher of the ‘Conformal Radiotherapy/IMRT [image-guided radiotherapy]’ course from 1996 to 2006, and a co-director with Ben Mijnheer.

I was involved in the creation of the ‘ESTRO Particle Therapy’ course, of which I was a teacher and co-director with Oliver Jäkel from 2007 to 2018.

During the 1980s, the physical foundations of a technological revolution in radiotherapy were laid. I saw my future career in research laboratories and radiotherapy departments that were involved in the translation of technologies such as intensity modulation and image guidance to the clinic. Thirty years ago, Germaine Heeren pulled me out of my relatively safe shelter at Ghent University. Germaine’s vision of interdisciplinary teaching courses was new to me, but her persuasiveness forced me into this riskier territory where I, a radiation oncologist, had to speak the language of influential physicists such as Ben, Dominique, Oliver and other physics course directors, to help them secure the clinical aspects of the courses.

During the early years, ESTRO organised physics courses at specific locations; for example, the ‘Basic Physics’ course in Leuven and the ‘Conformal/IMRT’ course in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From the onset, the ESTRO School helped to open doors for many junior and established professionals from less prosperous regions to receive training, fellowships, and mobility grants, and hence to spread “excellence” across Europe rather than limiting it to elite centres. In line with that philosophy, the ESTRO School moved courses to Central and Eastern Europe and ‑‑ on demand ‑‑ worldwide. Challenges were sometimes enormous: for example, financial transfers to countries of the former Soviet Union. There is a story that Germaine travelled to Moscow with almost $100,000 in cash hidden in her clothes to pay the local expenses of the first ESTRO course on Basic Physics to be held in Russia.

For me, it was a privilege to be part of the ESTRO School. It was an opportunity to gain continuous education in the radiotherapy field and beyond. In the present volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world, the ESTRO School has a more important educational and stabilising role to play than ever before.

Wilfried De Neve, Professor Emeritus, Ghent University, Belgium
Past Chair, ESTRO Education Council & Director of the ESTRO School (2004 - 2005)