Re: Ph.D. programs in medical physics

[scherer@uiuc.edu (David Scherer)]

>Rad-Safers:
>
>We have a grad student doing his MS here at RIDIC and he is interested
>in pursuing a Ph.D. in medical physics, especially diagnostic imaging. 
>Could you please advise us about academic programs you are aware
>of? Thanks.
>
>Dick Toohey
>TooheyR@ORAU.GOV
>
The AAPM, ACMP, and ACR Commission on Physics jointly sponsor the Commission
on Accreditation of Medical Physics Programs.  Previously, medical physics
programs were approved by an AAPM commission.  The following institutions
have accredited educational programs,  Your graduate student should acquaint
himself with these programs.  Some have WWW home pages; I imagine that all
have brochures or catalogs.

UCLA, Dept. of Radiological Sci., Los Angelos,310/206-2967

Univ. of CO HSC, Div. of Radiological Sci., Denver, 303/270-8993

McGill Univ., Prog. in Med. Phys., Montreal, 514/934-8052

Univ. of OK HSC, Dept. of Radiological Sci., OK City, 405/271-3462

Univ. of TX, M.D.Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, 713/792-3216

Wayne State Univ., Dept. of Rad. Onc. & Radiology, Detroit, 313/745-2314

Univ. of WI, Dept. of Med. Phys., Madison, 608/262-2171

There are a number of other institutions with diagnostic physics graduate
programs.  A few that jump immediately to mind are Univ. of Chicago, UT
Southwestern (Dallas), Arizona, Harvard, IN Univ. Med. Center, etc., etc.
In addition, some of the hottest topics in imaging science (MRI, MRS, spiral
CT, image processing) are actively pursued in electrical engineering
departments (e.g., here at UIUC).  Perhaps this student should browse
through a few journals to see what topics interest him/her and which
institutions are active in those areas.  To start with, he could look at
journals that cover a broad range of imaging topics, e.g. Radiology, Medical
Physics, IEEE Medical Imaging.

As an aside, I would point out that at least 2/3 of the physicists in
practice (and a like fraction of the jobs) are in therapy, not diagnostic
imaging.

Dave Scherer
uiuc.edu