Raising awareness of medical physics: The view of international organization for medical physics (IOMP)

Abstract

One of the main aims of the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP) is raising awareness of medical physics. IOMP has built throughout the years many links with other international organisations, as IAEA, IUPAP, WHO, ILO. The latter link (developed over years-long discussions) resulted in the inclusion of the occupation “medical physicist” in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). As part of IUPESM we became members of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), what is another high professional visibility. At a local level IOMP has helped the establishment of tens medical physics societies and currently we have 82 National Member Societies with 22,000 members. To further increase the internal collaboration of these societies IOMP has created Regional Organisations (RO) on geographical basis, which have good internal understanding of regional requirements. During 2015 IOMP created Regional Coordination Board to further strengthen the links of IOMP with its RO (EFOMP, AFOMP, ALFIM, SEAFOMP, MEFOMP, FAMPO). Future plans to raise the awareness of medical physics with all means and at all levels, include: ∘ at local level through short seminars focussing on various new medical devices; links with Hospital management, etc; ∘ at national/regional level through links with the media to publicise similar subjects and our involvement in hospital/patient safety, etc; ∘ at international level through further collaboration with institutions related to medicine/sciences/education/safety, etc. Increasing the visibility of our profession is one of the objectives during the current IOMP office and we all have to make this a standing priority.