John Damilakis, PhD
President, IOMP

July 2023 MPI issue, Malta Association of MP, IOMP activities at AAPM annual meeting, Awards

Dear Colleagues,

The ‘Medical Physics International’ (MPI) is a free IOMP journal aiming to support the global development of our profession.  MPI is in its eleventh year since the first issue of the journal in April 2013. The July 2023 issue was released a few days ago http://www.mpijournal.org/content_currentissue.aspx  Congratulations to new co-Editors Dr. Francis Hasford, and Dr. Sameer Tipnis as well as to MPI team. Their dedication and hard work are evident in the rich content presented in this issue. 

Maltese colleagues established the ‘Malta Association of Medical Physics’ (MAMP) in 2018 and applied to become a National Member Organization (NMO) of the IOMP. MAMP is a member of EFOMP. In accordance with IOMP’s by-laws, the MAMP application was reviewed by the Professional Relations Committee and was subsequently endorsed by the IOMP ExCom. The Council is currently voting to approve MAMP to become an NMO of IOMP.

The AAPM 65th Annual Meeting and Exhibition was organized on July 23-27, 2023 at the George Brown Convention Center in Houston. The IOMP organized the session ‘Data analysis and AI in relation to medical physics profession: The IOMP’s view’ https://aapm.confex.com/aapm/2023am/meetingapp.cgi/Session/1149 This event was attended by many colleagues interested in the hot topic of AI. The IOMP-AAPM leadership meeting took place on July 26, 2023. There was an interesting discussion on items of mutual interest. Moreover, the IOMP booth at the exhibition area provided opportunities for one-on-one connection. For more information, please click at https://www.facebook.com/InternationalOrganizationforMedicalPhysics/

Giving awards to distinguished medical physicists holds significant value as it not only recognizes their significant contributions and achievements but also serves as an incentive for further outstanding clinical work and groundbreaking research. The IOMP ExCom has very recently approved the recommendation of the Awards and Honours Committee regarding the ‘Early Carrer Scientist’ IUPAP award. Moreover, the IOMP has announced 3 calls i.e., the 2023 IOMP Honorary Membership award, the Fellow of IOMP honour and the John Mallard 2023 award. The Honorary Membership award aims to recognise significant contributions to the objectives of the IOMP by persons who are not practising Medical Physics themselves. The Fellow of IOMP honour aims to recognise significant activities for the international development of medical physics. The John Mallard award honours a medical physicist who has developed an innovation of high scientific quality and who has successfully applied this innovation to clinical practice (e.g., equipment, software, methodology), or who has led a medical physics innovation team. The deadline for nominations was July 12, 2023. All calls for nominations can be found at https://www.iomp.org/call-for-nominations/   Please visit this webpage for future award calls.