On

Thursday 7 November 2019, the IAEA will join all medical physicists around the world and the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) in the celebration of the 7th International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP). 7 November marks an important date for medical physics because on this day in 1867, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, known for her pioneering research on radioactivity, was born in Poland.

The topic chosen by IOMP for this year’s celebration is “It’s a Medical Physics World!”.

Medical physics has been included among the healthcare professions by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2008 and the work of medical physicists directly contribute to the quality, safety and effectiveness of the uses of radiation medicine in diagnosis and therapy. Nevertheless, still scarce understanding and recognition of the profession exist worldwide. This can result in serious consequences that can include unharmonized and undesirable professional standards, low professional status in healthcare and therefore a lack of recognition, brain drain and understaffing. These are all elements that ultimately can result in compromising patient healthcare.

The IAEA is committed to supporting the work of medical physicists all around the globe and works daily supporting medical physicists in all world regions. Activities of the IAEA include:

• Providing freely accessible guidelines and handbooks that foster the application of best practices in the clinic,
• directly supporting capacity building in medical physics in Member States through Technical Cooperation projects,
• guidance toward harmonization of education and training in medical physics to international recommendations,
• support to research activities, and
• providing services such as calibration and postal dose audits.

A lesser known opportunity at the IAEA is the appointment of interns who, for different durations of time, support the work of staff members in the various fields of medical physics, while gaining exposure to the activities carried out at the IAEA. Most interns in the field of medical physics are themselves interested in this profession that they may wish to pursue in the future.

Read more at the dedicated section of the IAEA website:

https://humanhealth.iaea.org/HHW/MedicalPhysics/TheMedicalPhysicist/IDMP/2019/index.html