Medical physicist
Medical Physicists are playing a leading role in resolving the physical and technical problems. They have passed the certification evaluation and examination held by Japanese Board for Medical Physicist Qualifications (JBMP).
This corresponds to a “Medical Physicist” who is classified as a part of the group of physicists and astronomers using the International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08), issued by the International Labour Organization (ILO), as “They apply scientific knowledge relating to physics and astronomy in industrial, medical, military or other fields.”
The roles of Medical Physicists are: i) clinical contribution, ii) research and development, and iii) education. More specifically, they have contributed to the fields listed below:
- The field of Radiation Oncology Medical Physics: Medical Physicists have contributed to control tumors effectively with minimized side effects through the development of a radiotherapy system using X-rays and heavy particles, and quality assurance work. They have also contributed to the optimization and verification of patient-specific radiotherapy plans.
- The field of Radiology Medical Physics: Medical Physicists have contributed to the development of imaging devices for the diagnosis of diseases, improvement of image quality, and quality assurance in radiation doses, in the field of Radiology.
- The field of Nuclear Medicine Physics: Medical Physicists have contributed to the development of imaging and treatment systems using radioisotopes, improvement of image quality, quality assurance in radiation dose, in the field of Nuclear Medicine.
- The field of Radiation Protection and Radiation Safety: Medical Physicists have contributed to minimizing radiation dose and radiation damage.
To become an examinee or a candidate of qualified medical physicists, one must finish a medical physics education program in graduate courses, and undergo clinical training for a certain period.
From JBMP homepage: http://www.jbmp.org/english/
Medical physicist's work
Clinical work
- We will design a high-precision treatment plan based on the knowledge of physics and engineering and perform a dosimetric verification of the treatment plan.
- We will manage the treatment dose and proofread it. This task is particularly important because doses in radiation therapy are much higher than those in the diagnostic field.
- We will conduct acceptance tests and planning for the maintenance and management when treatment equipment is introduced, and provide quality control on a daily basis.
- We will provide advice to doctors and radiation technologists from a physical point of view.
Research and Development
As the only university with a heavy-particle beam therapy system in Japan, we are conducting research using the characteristics of heavy-ion beams. It is important to develop new irradiation methods for improving the accuracy of the irradiation and research accelerator science for stable beams. Our biological group is investigating the radiation responses of cells and tissues by fractionated irradiation for heavy-particle beams and X-rays.
Please see the research introduction for details.
Teaching
Our laboratory’s main purpose is to conduct graduate school education on medical physics / radiation biology. The Master’s course is certified as an education course established by the JBMP. The goal of this physics group is to train physicists who can design equipment for the development of heavy-particle radiation therapy. The aim of our biology group is to train radiation biologists and to give students an overview of the profundity of radiation biology.
Please see the application for students for details. application for students for details.
