Question: can you say more about your job

Leila Nichol answered on 19 Mar 2013:

Hi Jack, I replied to your question but we had a powercut and I lost it!

I’m a medical physicist who specialised in Radiotherapy – the treatment of cancer with radiation. Mostly this is high energy X-rays from a linear accelerator and sometimes it’s using radioactive sources in a theatre operation where they are implanted into the tumour (brachytherapy). Our job is to understand the interaction of radiation with the tumour and provide advice on this. We also make sure the machines are delivering the right amount of radiation. It’s very interesting and challenging, but also rewarding. Other areas of medical phyiscs are nuclear medicine, diagnostic radiology, physiological measurement, equipment, radiation protection, lasers, ultrasound… lots!

Normally you would do a physics degree after leaving school and then apply to the Medical Physics training programme which is 3 years including doing a Masters degree.

You can find out more on https://www.ipem.ac.uk/

I hope this helps!

If you’re really interested, contact the people on that website who might be able to arrange for you to visit a local hospital!