What is Medizin-Physik/ Was ist Medizinische Physik? medizin-physik or medizinphysik is german for Medical Physics.

Medical physics is a branch in medicine that utilizes radiation to treat a wide range of cancers in adults and children.

Each year, numerous cancer patients receive radiation therapy. Used alone or in conjunction with other treatments such as chemotherapy, brachytherapy and radical surgery, radiotherapy can destroy malignant cancer cells and help overcome the disease. Research areas which fall under the umbrella of Medical Physics are:

Radiotherapy, chemotherapy & brachytherapy.
Radionuclide therapy, nuclear medicine, nuclear pharmacy.
Radiobiology, Health Physics & radiation protection.
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) .
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

What is the role of a Medical Physicist (Medizinphysiker) ?

A medical physicist is an expert in radiation physics. He practices medical physics, interacts directly with the radiation oncology team and is responsible for radiation treatment planning. A typical radiation oncology treatment team consists of a radiation oncology physician, a medical physicist, a dosimetrist, a radiation therapist and a radiation oncology nurse.

The medical physicist guarantees the accurate measurements of the radiation beam. His goal is to compute the correct radiation dose that can best destroy malignant tumors while minimizing damage to normal tissue. In addition, he also plays a major role in the radiation protection, safety and functioning of radiotherapy units, radiation sources, and radiation detection equipment (such as the Geiger Muller counter on the right).

Over the past few years, a number of parties such as the "Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Medizinische Physik" , the "International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP)" and the "European Federation of Organisations in Medical Physics (EFOMP)" have published several papers about medical physics.

We've compiled some of the most recent writings and they're available for download in PDF format.

Paper name	Author	Date	File
Medical Physics Education and Training in Europe	EFOM	2006

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