Medical Physics News

Participants at the IMPA Symposium listen intently to Dr. Chee-Wai Cheng (MPRI) as he describes his research concerning the quality assurance of treatment planning dose volume histogram analysis.

The second Indiana Medical Physics Alliance (IMPA) Symposium was held in Bloomington, Indiana on Saturday, August 29. The symposium featured research presented by students, faculty, clinicians and scientists from the Indiana University Department of Physics and the Cyclotron Facility (IUCF), the Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute (MPRI), the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) departments of Radiation Oncology and Radiology, and the Purdue University School of Health Sciences Medical Physics Program. The director of IUCF, Jim Musser, welcomed twelve speakers and 50 attendees to this assembly, the second symposium in a continuing series of meetings intended to exchange cutting edge research results and improve networking among the affiliated members of the alliance. The four sessions: Technology Development, Clinical Applications, Radiation Biology and Associated Effects, were moderated by Susan Klein of IUB, Rob Stewart of Purdue, Colleen DesRosiers and Phil Dittmer of IUSM respectively. Included in the program were tours of the Proton Therapy System and MPRI, and a workshop on distance learning through course sharing lead by Amber Marks of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC).

Draik Hecksel, a Purdue doctoral student performing research at MPRI, explains his analysis of neutron production resulting from proton scattering during therapy.

The IMPA is a medical Physics educational alliance that provides a didactic curriculum in medical physics shared by the three campuses: West Lafayette, Indianapolis and Bloomington, through the CIC CourseShare facility. Students gain clinical training at the Radiation Oncology Department, Indiana University Hospital and through the Imaging Sciences program of the Department of Radiology. Currently, Purdue awards masters and doctoral degrees in medical physics. Indiana University offers undergraduate courses through the Applied Physics track of the Bachelor of Science in Physics and anticipates offering a Master of Science in Medical Physics beginning in 2010. Research, a required component of all three programs, is unified and strengthened through the IMPA symposium series.

This symposium was organized by Susan Klein (IUCF), Rob Stewart (Purdue), Colleen DesRosiers (IUSM Radiation Oncology) and Gary Hutchins (IUSM Radiology).