INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL PHYSICS WEEK (IMPW) 2021

Dear Colleagues,

The webinars of IOMP started last year during IMPW 2020 were a great success despite the time zone differences that made participants from countries in Oceanian and Pacific region to remain awake till around midnight and those in Western part of North America to be up very early like 5 AM. Despite this, we have been having reasonable participation of about 500, on an average, with maximum number around 800. It may be important to note that IOMP has neither been providing CME credits nor a certificate of participation and thus it has been purely educational interest driving participants to the activity. The visit statistics of recorded webinars made available on IOMP website is also indicative of the interest our professional colleagues have shown in the topics covered.

With that in background, much as we will like different countries and organizations to organize activities during the IMPW 2021, we decided to have one hour webinar every day during the week 26-30 April.

You are encouraged to organize events in your city and country with the objective of

  1. Popularizing the profession among other colleagues in the clinical and non-clinical field as also among public;
  2. Promoting medical physics among physics colleagues to let them know how their students can find a career in medical physics;
  3. To let medical physicists know how they can do better in patient care;
  4. You are welcome to choose your theme that best suits you locally.

Madan Rehani,
President, IOMP

Dear Colleagues,

The main purpose of the International Medical Physics Week (IMPW) is to motivate organization of activities in a defined week that result in the promotion of the subject of medical physics globally.  We will celebrate IMPW 2021 in April from 26-30. The general public is not aware of the critical role medical physicists play in providing services in medical, educational and research institutions. All regional and national organizations are invited to participate by organizing relevant activities taking into consideration pandemic restrictions.

The coronavirus pandemic has been a major challenge for every sector in our society. The crisis-related restrictions of travelling and social distancing have led to a sharp decline in education and training activities. As a consequence, digital learning has been developed considerably. The year 2021 is another period of opportunities for innovative education.  The ‘IOMP School’ organizes a series of webinars to celebrate the IMPW 2021. All IMPW webinars are free to register and attend. The only prerequisites are a thirst for knowledge and a broader understanding of the topic.

I would like to encourage you to participate in the webinars and benefit from the expertise of our distinguished invited speakers.

Happy IMPW 2021!

With my best wishes,

Prof. John Damilakis
Vice President, IOMP

Download IMPW Poster

Download IMPW Background

Download Poster

Day 1 (24 April 2021)

Monochromatic X-rays: A new source with potential to replace century-old technology

Monday, 26th April 2021; 12.00 GMT; Duration 1 hour

Further information: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33368354/

Moderator: John Damilakis

Speakers: Madan Rehani and Eric Silver

Dr. Madan M. Rehani is Director, Global Outreach for Radiation Protection at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. He is President, International Organization for Medical Physics (2018-2021). He was earlier Radiation Safety Specialist at the International Atomic Energy Agency for 11 years and prior to that Professor and Head of Medical Physics at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. Dr. Rehani is a Member, International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). He is author of 8 Annals of ICRP, 4 of which as Chair of the Task Group. He is Senior editor BJR, Assoc Editor Medical Physics. He has more than 165 publications, has written 39 chapters in Books and has edited 5 books. He has published papers in high impact factor journals e.g. British Medical Journal, JAMA Intern Med, Eur Heart J, Cardiovascular Imaging, Am J Gastroenterol, Circulation J, The Lancet.

Eric Silver, PhD has dedicated his career to experimental high energy astrophysics. He spent 21 years as a Senior Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) where he directed an interdisciplinary program of X ray spectroscopy, polarimetry and low temperature physics for 1) the study of cosmic x-ray and gamma ray sources such as black holes, supernova remnants and clusters of galaxies; 2) fundamental physics investigations of highly charged ions produced in heavy ion accelerators and laboratory plasmas; and 3) industrial and medical applications where high resolution x-ray spectroscopic imaging is important to materials and chemical analysis. The latter included studies of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry, interstellar dust and cometary particles returned to Earth from NASA probes, examining artifacts and fine art for conservation science, and even mapping anti-cancer drugs at the cellular level. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from M.I.T. and Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Columbia University, has served on many NASA, NIH, DoE and NSF review panels, authored/co-authored 130+ publications on spectroscopy and x-ray imaging and is the co-editor of a book on spectroscopy. Eric was a recipient of a NIH Challenge Grant and the George E. Burch Fellowship for new medical applications and has 16 patents to his credit.

Artificial Intelligence and medical physics: The initial experience of the SINFONIA Horizon project

Tuesday, 27th April 2021; 12.00 GMT, 1 hour duration

View Recording here

Further information: https://www.sinfonia-appraisal.eu/

Moderator: Mika Kortesniemi

Speakers: John Damilakis and Habib Zaidi

Prof. John Damilakis, PhD, FIOMP, FIUPESM

John Damilakis is professor & chairman at the Department of Medical Physics, School of Medicine, University of Crete & director of the Department of Medical Physics of the University Hospital of Heraklion, Crete, Greece. He is Vice President & President elect of IOMP, Immediate Past President of EURAMED, Past President of EFOMP and Past President of the ‘Hellenic Association of Medical Physics’. Prof. Damilakis is a member of 2 ICRP Task Groups & member of the steering committee of the ‘EuroSafe Imaging’ of the European Society of Radiology. As a Visiting Professor he has given lectures on dosimetry and radiation protection in Boston University, USA. His publications have been focused on medical radiation protection and dosimetry. He is editor of 2 books published by the IOP Publishing and Springer‐Verlag and co‐author of 2 chapters in books published by Springer and Academic Press. Number of publications in PubMed: 220, number of citations 7220, h‐index 45 (Google Scholar, February 2021).

Habib Zaidi, PhD

Professor Habib Zaidi is Chief physicist and head of the PET Instrumentation & Neuroimaging Laboratory at Geneva University Hospital and faculty member at the medical school of Geneva University. He is also a Professor at the University of Groningen (Netherlands) and the University of Southern Denmark. His research is supported by the Swiss National Foundation, private foundations and industry (Total 8.3M US$) and centres on hybrid imaging instrumentation (PET/CT and PET/MRI), computational modelling and radiation dosimetry and deep learning. He was guest editor for 11 special issues of peer-reviewed journals and serves on the editorial board of leading journals in medical physics and medical imaging. He has been elevated to the grade of fellow of the IEEE, AIMBE and the AAPM. His academic accomplishments in the area of quantitative PET imaging have been well recognized by his peers since he is a recipient of many awards and distinctions among which the prestigious (100’000$) 2010 kuwait Prize of Applied sciences (known as the Middle Eastern Nobel Prize). Prof. Zaidi has been an invited speaker of over 160 keynote lectures and talks at an International level, has authored over 320 peer- reviewed articles in prominent journals and is the editor of four textbooks.

Patient radiation protection: How IAEA and WHO are contributing?”

Wednesday, 28th April 2021, 12.00 GMT, 1 hour duration

View Recording here

Moderator: Madan Rehani

Speakers: Ola Holmberg and Maria Perez

Ola Holmberg, PhD

Maria Perez, PhD

Dr María del Rosario Pérez is a physician specialized in radiotherapy with a post-graduate diploma on Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, who worked in the field of radiation protection during more than 30 years. In 2007 she joined the WHO Radiation and Health Unit, where she contributed to the revision of the International Radiation Basic Safety Standards (BSS) and is currently leading a Global Initiative on Radiation Safety in Health Care Settings. She represents WHO at the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety (IACRS), the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the IAEA Radiation Safety Standards Committee (RASSC), the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the EC Group of Scientific Experts referred to in Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty. 

Does contact shielding improve patient safety?

Thursday, 29th April 2021, 12.00 GMT, 1 hour duration

View Recording here

Moderator: Chai Hong Yeong, PhD

Speaker: Paddy Gilligan, PhD

Paddy Gilligan, PhD works as chief physicist in the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin Ireland. He has over thirty years’ experience in diagnostic imaging, He has served on state boards for regulatory radiation protection agencies. He became associate professor in University College Dublin in 2017. He was the chair of the European congress of radiology physics programme in 2019 He was a member the radiation safety committee of the European Society of Radiology, and the Eurosafe imaging steering committee. Prior to becoming President of EFOMP he chaired the successful bid for ECMP 2022 for Dublin. He is a trustee of the Robert Boyle Foundation. He is currently chair of the Gonad and Patient Shielding (GAPS) group of experts who are in the process of producing a consensus document on patient shielding from the major European professional bodies involved in radiology.

The management of unintended and accidental exposures

Friday, 30th April 2021, 12.00 GMT, 1 hour duration

View Recording here

Moderator: Eva Bezak

Speaker: Colin Martin

Dr Colin Martin worked as a hospital-based Medical Physicist in Radiation Protection in Glasgow and Aberdeen, Scotland for over 30 years. He has now retired from the NHS but is an honorary senior lecturer for the University of Glasgow. Colin is Vice-Chair of ICRP Committee 3 (Protection in Medicine), chairs two ICRP Task groups and is a member of several others. He is a member of various UK and EU working parties, COMARE, which advises the UK government on medical uses of radiation, and he has chaired two IAEA Technical Meetings on avoidance and prevention of radiation incidents in medicine. His research interests include radiation protection, diagnostic radiology, radiation dosimetry, and non-ionising physics. He has co-authored/edited several textbooks on radiation protection, written over 300 articles including 150 papers in peer reviewed scientific journals. Colin is a member of Editorial Boards for the Journal of Radiological Protection and Radiation Protection Dosimetry.

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