European Federation of Organisations for medical physics (EFOMP) policy statement no 20: The role of medical physicists and medical physics experts in physiological measurement and related therapies.

The role of medical physics professionals (MPPs) (medical physicists and medical physics experts) in physiological measurement and related therapies (PM&T) applied in e.g., critical care, neurophysiology, neurology, physiology, audiology, and neurotology has long been acknowledged.

An inventory of patient-image based risk/dose, image quality and body habitus/size metrics for adult abdomino-pelvic CT protocol optimisation.

Purpose: Patient-specific protocol optimisation in abdomino-pelvic Computed Tomography (CT) requires measurement of body habitus/size (BH), sensitivity-specificity (surrogates image quality (IQ) metrics) and risk (surrogates often dose quantities) (RD). This work provides an updated inventory of metrics available for each of these three categories of optimisation variables derivable directly from patient measurements or images. We consider objective IQ metrics mostly in the spatial domain (i.

EFOMP Malaga Declaration 2023: An updated vision on Medical Physics in Europe.

In 2006, the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) adopted the "Malaga Declaration". The declaration asserted the fundamental role of Medical Physics professionals in the radiation protection of patients, workers, general public, carers and comforters and research participants in hospitals. However, since that time the Medical Physics profession has evolved in Europe and new regulations and documentation have been issued, such as directive 2013/59/Euratom and the "European Guidelines on Medical Physics Expert" (RP174).

EFOMP policy statement 18: Medical physics education for the non-physics healthcare professions.

Although Medical Physics educators have historically contributed to the education of the non-physics healthcare professions, their role was not studied in a systematic manner. In 2009, EFOMP set up a group to research the issue. In their first paper, the group carried out an extensive literature review regarding physics teaching for the non-physics healthcare professions.

CTContour: An open-source Python pipeline for automatic contouring and calculation of mean SSDE along the abdomino-pelvic region for CT images; validation on fifteen systems.

Purpose: Calculation of the Size Specific Dose Estimate (SSDE) requires accurate delineation of the skin boundary of patient CT slices. The AAPM recommendation for SSDE evaluation at every CT slice is too time intensive for manual contouring, prohibiting real-time or bulk processing; an automated approach is therefore desirable. Previous automated delineation studies either did not fully disclose the steps of the algorithm or did not always manage to fully isolate the patient.

Early career medical physicist groups in Europe: An EFOMP survey.

Introduction: Training, educating, and fostering of young professionals are key requisites for the progress of any profession. The young medical physicists (MPs) of today are the medical physics professionals and leaders of tomorrow. It is, therefore, essential that they learn to work collectively and in a coordinated manner at both national and European levels at an early stage in their career.

Being an excellent scientist is not enough to succeed! Soft skills for medical physicists.

Purpose: To provide a review of the literature and commentary regarding soft skills for Medical Physicists.

Method: A comprehensive search in PubMed was carried out using the searchwords 'medical physics' coupled separately ('AND', both in Title) with each of the following terms: leadership, teamwork, communication, pedagog*, teach*, marketing, conflict resolution, negotiat*, qualitative research, organizational psychology.

Results: The total number of PubMed references was extremely low (total 6 relevant articles for all of leadership, communication, pedagog*, teach*, with the rest of the searchwords giving zero hits) which is quite disturbing.

ESTABLISHING LOCAL AND NATIONAL DIAGNOSTIC AND INTERVENTIONAL CARDIOLOGY AND RADIOLOGY REFERENCE LEVELS IN A SMALL EUROPEAN STATE: THE CASE OF MALTA.

European Directive 2013/59/EURATOM requires the establishment and use of diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) for diagnostic and interventional procedures. The purpose of this study was to establish local DRLs for a major tertiary public hospital. As the hospital is the only such hospital in Malta, the same data collected for setting local DRLs can also be used for setting national DRLs, making local DRLs de facto national DRLs.

EFOMP policy statement 16: The role and competences of medical physicists and medical physics experts under 2013/59/EURATOM.

On 5 December 2013 the European Council promulgated Directive 2013/59/EURATOM. This Directive is important for Medical Physicists and Medical Physics Experts as it puts the profession on solid foundations and describes it more comprehensively. Much commentary regarding the role and competences has been developed in the context of the European Commission project "European Guidelines on the Medical Physics Expert" published as Radiation Protection Report RP174.

Maltese Radiographers' Attitudes towards Continuing Professional Development: An Initial Study Using Concept Maps.

Purpose: The Council for the Professions Complementary to Medicine in Malta recently published a draft document regarding the introduction of mandatory continuing professional development (CPD) for radiographers. This study explored the attitudes and motivators of Maltese radiographers prior to the implementation of mandatory CPD in order to provide the necessary information required by management to develop CPD successfully. Concept maps are used as part of a methodology to analyse qualitative data.

Curriculum for education and training of medical physicists in nuclear medicine: recommendations from the EANM Physics Committee, the EANM Dosimetry Committee and EFOMP.

Purpose: To provide a guideline curriculum covering theoretical and practical aspects of education and training for Medical Physicists in Nuclear Medicine within Europe.

Material And Methods: National training programmes of Medical Physics, Radiation Physics and Nuclear Medicine physics from a range of European countries and from North America were reviewed and elements of best practice identified. An independent panel of experts was used to achieve consensus regarding the content of the curriculum.