• Question: What does medical physics involve?

    Asked by admiralwasabi02585 to Charlotte, Dhvanil, Frank, Jim, Leila on 11 Mar 2013. This question was also asked by rebreb14, chlolo, bethisperfect.
    • Photo: Jim O Doherty

      Jim O Doherty answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      It involves a broad understanding of Physics and how you can apply it to medicine. In my job, I need to know a lot of Physics and a lot of Chemistry. When we inject radioactive drugs into a patient, we need to know how this drug is going to work (so what chemical reactions will occur), and how best to scan the patient (this is dependent on the Physics of the radiation)

    • Photo: Leila Nichol

      Leila Nichol answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      Medical Physicists are involved in many different areas in healthcare; radiotherapy, radiation protection, diagnostic radiology, MRI, lasers, ultrasound, nuclear medicine.

      When we study Medical Physics at university we need to get a good grounding knowledge in Anatomy, Physiology, Statistics, Radiation Physics, Radiotherapy Physics, Nuclear Medicine, Diagnostic Radiology, Medical Image Computing, Non-Ionising Radiation, Medical Imaging, Electronics & Instrumentation, Computing

      Basically, we need to understand how things work and how to optimise performance. In radiotherapy, we are the radiation expert and advise consultants on various treatments for patients.

    • Photo: Charlotte Kemp

      Charlotte Kemp answered on 11 Mar 2013:

      @admiralwasabi02585 Medical Physics is the practical application of physics in a health or hospital setting. As Leila has said, medical physics covers a lot of areas and in the end you can specialise in any one. To be a medical physicist you need a physics or engineering degree and then to go on the medical physics training scheme…see the link for more details on the scheme:
      http://www.ipem.ac.uk/CareersTraining/MedicalPhysicists.aspx

      Medical physics is brilliant because you are taking a really scientific subject, such as physics or engineering and applying that knowledge to help patients get better and to improve their quality of life…it’s a great feeling to help people through the work that you do!

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