Introduction to Medical Physics

This textbook provides an accessible introduction to the basic principles of medical physics, the applications of medical physics equipment, and the role of a medical physicist in healthcare.

Introduction to Medical Physics is designed to support undergraduate and graduate students taking their first modules on a medical physics course, or as a dedicated book for specific modules such as medical imaging and radiotherapy. It is ideally suited for new teaching schemes such as Modernising Scientific Careers and will be invaluable for all medical physics students worldwide.

Key features:

• Written by an experienced and senior team of medical physicists from highly respected institutions
• The first book written specifically to introduce medical physics to undergraduate and graduate physics students
• Provides worked examples relevant to actual clinical situations

About the Author:

Cornelius Lewis graduated with a PhD in Medical Physics from Leeds University in 1979. After completing a research post between Surrey University and the University of British Columbia he pursued a career in the UK NHS. Dr Lewis has worked in a number of NHS Trusts across London in nuclear medicine, diagnostic radiology and radiation protection. He joined the Medical Engineering and Physics Department of King's College Hospital, London in 1991 as Radiation Protection Adviser prior to being appointed as Head of Radiation Physics and from 2004 until his retirement in 2016 was Director of Medical Engineering and Physics.

Professor Stephen Keevil is Head of Medical Physics at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, where he leads a team of around 180 physicists, engineers and technologists working across the full range of medical physics and clinical engineering disciplines. He is also Professor of Medical Physics at King's College London and chairs the examination board for the university's MSc programmes in medical engineering and physics. Prof Keevil studied physics at Oxford University, followed by an MSc in Medical Physics from the University of Surrey and a PhD in NMR spectroscopy from the University of London. Following a broad training in medical physics in the National Health Service, he held a series of research, academic and clinical roles in magnetic resonance imaging physics over a period of almost 30 years prior to his current appointment. He has taught MR physics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels throughout that time. He is President Elect of the British Institute of Radiology, a member of the Administrative Council of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine and a past President of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Tony Greener read physics at York University graduating with a BSc in 1982. He began his career in the UK National Health Service as the North East Thames Regional Medical Physics trainee from 1982-1984 gaining an MSc. in radiation physics as part of this early training scheme. He joined the Medical Physics department at Guys and St.Thomas' Hospital, London in 1988 remaining until retirement in 2021. In 2013 he was appointed head of the radiotherapy physics team managing a large group supporting clinical radiotherapy services to a population of 1.9million people in the south of London and beyond. Research areas developed in the group over this period have centred around the application of machine learning within radiotherapy. In 2016 Tony oversaw physics aspects relating to the expansion and transfer of the radiotherapy department into a purpose built integrated cancer centre on the Guys campus along with the opening of the new Guys 'satellite' cancer unit at Queen Mary's Hospital, Kent. Throughout his career Tony has taught a wide range of radiotherapy physics topics to medical physics trainees, clinical oncologists, radiotherapy radiographers and medical students. As a member of several examination boards this has included the design of teaching modules, examination papers and the supervision of numerous MSc projects.

Prof. Slavik Tabakov is Vice-President of the International Union of Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM, 2018-2022) and Coordinating Director of the International College on Medical Physics, ICTP, Trieste, Italy. He was Director of three MSc programmes in Medical Physics and Engineering at King's College London, UK from 2000 to 2018. He has been an officer of the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) since 2000 and President in 2015-2018. Prof. Tabakov graduated in Sofia, Bulgaria, followed by industry training in the USA and France, and a PhD in Computed Tomography densitometry. He has contributed to medical physics development in low-and-middle income countries (LMIC) and has advised the development of 16 MSc programmes in LMIC. He was a lecturer and expert in many IAEA projects in the fields of X-ray Diagnostic Radiology and education, including the development of TCS 56 "Postgraduate Medical Physics Academic Programmes". He developed and coordinated 7 international pilot projects, which produced the first e-learning and the first educational website in medical physics, the first e-Encyclopaedia of Medical Physics and related Scientific Dictionary (now in 32 languages). He is the Founding Co-Editor in Chief of the IOMP Journal Medical Physics International and is a Fellow of IUPESM, IOMP and IPEM.

Renato Padovani, medical physicist consultant at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy), is the Coordinator of the Master of Advanced Studies in Medical Physics, a Joint ICTP and Trieste University programme aiming to support the development of medical physics in low-middle income countries. He is also a teacher of radiation dosimetry and radiation protection and contributes to the development of medical physics activities of the ICTP. He has been Head of the Medical Physics Department at the S. Maria della Misericordia University Hospital of Udine (Italy) for 30 years developing clinical and research projects in the context of Italian and European programmes in diagnostic and interventional radiology, radiation therapy, nuclear medicine and radiation protection. He has served as an expert in IAEA missions and task groups for more than 20 years. He is co-founder and honorary member of the Italian Association of Medical Physics and he served for 6 years as secretary general of the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP).