IDMP 2021 Report: Nepalese Association of Medical Physicist (NAMP)
This year International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP) celebrations were done in spite of holiday in Nepal as we were celebrating Tihar festival also known as the festival of lights. Thanks to COVID19 pandemic situation worldwide, which has changed the conventional method of learning. This has had a huge impact on education system as well as organizing conferences/seminars. Therefore, this year also Nepalese Association of Medical Physicist (NAMP) has used virtual platforms to celebrate IDMP program in Nepal. The program was scheduled on 7th November 2020 at 7: 30 PM Nepal standard time. The theme for this year’s IDMP is “Communicating the role of Medical physicist to Public” is very relevant because most of the medical physicists are still working behind the screen. Hence this is the time to come forward to publicize the work as well as responsibilities of medical physicists.
The IDMP day was celebrated through via online platform. This year’s IDMP day was celebrated in continuation of clinical lecture series for Nepal. This lecture series was started since the beginning of 2021 by Nepalese Association of Medical Physicists with the physicists working at different institutes in USA via online platform. Different topics like Quality Assurance, treatment planning (specific sites), treatment procedures like SBRT etc or any other topic that physicist in Nepal are interested to learn about. Dr. Surendra Prajapati from MD Anderson Cancer Hospital is coordinating this lecturer series from US side. The program was started with exchange of greetings among all participating medical physicists working in Nepal and USA. IDMP day message was delivered from acting president, Prof. Shanta Lall Shrestha. The program lasts for almost two hours with very fruitful discussion on different topics like roles and responsibilities, registration, certification, job placement, issues and challenges.
In Nepal, IDMP day was celebrated on 8th of November at B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital, Bharatpur, Nepal Cancer Hospital, Kathmandu and at other institutes with the exchange of greetings and cake cutting program including other working staffs at their respective departments.
Dr. Kanchan P. Adhikari, Secretary General, NAMP