Dr. Strange (high) tech or how I learned to stop worrying and love my MLC/3D treatment planning, stereotactic linac

I have been asked to write a commentary on the developing trends of modern radiation oncology and the present hightech pathway that is being so heavily traveled. At the risk of appearing to be a Socratic gadfly by some (also a curmudgeon and agent provocateur by others), I begin with two quotes: “If you want to cure Hodgkin’s disease, you must learn to think like a Reed-Sternberg cell.” Henry S. Kaplan. “If radiation oncologists treated poliomyelitis, today we would have bigger iron lungs.” Franz Buschke.