Physics and society : the medical physics profession and its contribution to healthcare

Abstract

Physicists have been actively involved in the development of healthcare for over a hundred years. However the medical physics profession as an organized profession is relatively young and less familiar than the other healthcare professions. Even among university and pre-university mainstream physics educators little is known about the precise responsibilities of the role. We describe and discuss the function of the profession based on a review of the literature and a document analysis of the policy statements of the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics. We hope that in this way physics educators would be in a better position to encourage more young physicists to grasp the opportunities offered by this highly challenging and rapidly expanding profession.