Radiation therapy is often a key part of treatment for many childhood cancers. Expecting children to remain still during the therapy, however, can be a challenge.

The role of medical physicists and their value to Radiology Departments can be under-appreciated because often their work products are filled with numbers, calculations, tables, and plots that can easily be dismissed by simply looking for a “pass” or “fail” result.

One might think of medical physics as a field of calculations and measurements and machines, but for one medical physicist, he sees his work making a real difference in the lives of patients.

In an age of increasingly complex equipment and sophisticated quality assurance programs, it’s imperative that clinical physicists never lose sight of patients’ wishes.

Today, cancer patients all too often undergo cancer treatment with only a radiation oncologist, and perhaps a nurse, directly responsible for their care.

Uniformity tests are among the most important quality assurance evaluations for nuclear medicine gamma cameras, so they are performed daily—prior to patient imaging—to ensure that systems are functioning properly.

Epilepsy is typically managed via medication, but many patients also receive implanted nerve stimulators to help control their symptoms.

There are many factors that should be weighed into purchasing decisions for new medical imaging equipment, first and foremost the needs of the patient.

Clinical medical physicists are responsible for determining whether or not imaging systems are operating properly, and the method they use to do this is transitioning from Medical Physics 1.0, which provide “siloed” glimpses of system performance, to a more comprehensive version known as Medical Physics 3.0.

Proper medical imaging requires a careful balance between the quality and the safety of the exam. A poor quality exam is a disservice to the care of the patient while an exam with more radiation dose than necessary can undermine its safety.