March 2013 - Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

INDIA COLLABORATION FEATUREIt was apleasure forme to attendthe Instituteof Physicsand Engineering inMedicine AnnualConference in Oxford. I waspleased to make a presentationto delegates about medicalphysics in India, and to talk to thePresident, Vice PresidentInternational and other officers ofIPEM about closer collaborationbetween the two organisations.Medical physics in IndiaThere are 335 radiotherapy centres in Indiaand about 480 teletherapy units. Theseinclude 235 60 CO teletherapy facilities, 235accelerators and others including fivegamma knife and two cyberknife machines.There are 198 brachytherapy facilitiesoffering remote HDR and 14 offering remote LDR.Providing the qualified personnel for these facilities isdemanding. There are many courses for RTTs, and thesyllabi for these are now being streamlined. For medicalphysicists, the basic course had been the Diploma inRadiological Physics which started 51 years ago. Nowabout 10 universities are conducting MSc Medical Physicscourses, with a total of about 140 students per year. Asclinical competency is essential, a further 1-year internshipis being made compulsory from this year.The Association of Medical Physicists of IndiaAMPI was established in 1976 with the following aimsand objectives:n to promote the application of physics in medical andbiological sciences;n to encourage R&D and education in medical physics;n to provide a forum for people engaged in the field ofmedical physics;n to disseminate worldwide information in medicalphysics.The organisation works in seven ‘chapters’ coveringNorthern, Eastern, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and Western regions of thecountry (see figure 1). It is affiliated to the InternationalOrganization for Medical Physics and has more than 1,500life members. They come not only from India, but fromacross south-east Asia and the Middle East, as well asMalta, Germany, France, the UK, USA, Canada, the WestIndies, Australia and New Zealand.AMPI’s professional activities mirror those of IPEM:n publishing a quarterly journal (www.jmp.org.in);n organising an annual conference;n arranging short-term courses (medical physics,diagnostic technology, RTT, etc.);n conducting workshops and symposia;n offering awards for practice, papers and research.In addition, AMPI offers Fellowship to young membersfor advanced training.New developmentsThe College of Medical Physics of India (CMPI) wasestablished in 2009. The vision for the college was that itwould ‘establish and maintain the standards in thepractice of medical physicists in the disciplines ofdiagnostic imaging, radiation oncology and nuclearmedicine by certifying the medical physicists’. Its missionis: ‘to serve the public and the medical profession bycertifying that its members have acquired, demonstrated,and maintained a requisite standard of knowledge inmedical physics and demonstrated the competencerequired for the practice of diagnostic imaging, radiationoncology and nuclear medicine physics’.There were 85 founding members of CMPI, and afurther 16 have joined to date through the certificatedroute comprising written and oral examinations, and apresentation to a panel of examiners.Collaboration with IPEMAs President of AMPI, I was pleased to welcome Dr ChrisGibson of IPEM to India in 2011 as a guest of AMPI, andto discuss with him the potential for closer collaborationbetween our organisations.“It is affiliated to theInternational Organization forMedical Physics and has more“than 1,500 life membersFollowing this meeting, I brought to the IPEMconference in Oxford some specific proposals forcollaboration. These included professional activities suchas shared meetings and reciprocal recognition ofcertification; development opportunities such as membervisits and contributions to conferences; and exchange ofscientific documents including reports, journals andmonographs.I am delighted that we have agreed to set up aMemorandum of Understanding between IPEM andAMPI to take this collaboration forward, and I lookforward to many more successful exchanges between usin the future. nFIGURE 1.[INSET] AMPIchapters inIndia▼▼ Indigenoustelecobaltmachine,BHABHATRON,ACTREC,MumbaiSCOPE | MARCH 2013 | 31