Prerequisites

The material should be accessible to all Part III students. The lectures will be delivered by the module lead, Andrew Robinson, and guest lecturers, who are medical physicists invited from Addenbrooke's, to give a flavour of the clinical applications of physics used in daily patient management.

Learning Outcomes and Assessment

After attending this lecture series and completing supervision problems, students should be able to:

• Provide an overview of the application of physics in medicine
• Understand the general principles of medical image reconstruction and registration
• Compare and contrast the medical imaging techniques that are available in a hospital setting and explain their relative merits 
• Explain the difference between imaging with ionising and non-ionising radiation in the context of radiation dosimetry and risk
• Describe sensing and therapeutic applications of physics in medicine.

Synopsis

Medical physics (and clinical engineering) is a spectrum of specialities that apply physics and technology to medicine. The course is broadly split into two.

Ionising Radiation in Medical Physics: ionising radiation interactions, generation, and detection are covered before moving into their broad application in Medical Physics in imaging (CT), nuclear medicine, radiation safety, and radiotherapy. 

Non-ionising radiation in Medical Physics: physiological sensing, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and ultrasound (US) are covered, providing background on methods of measuring physiological parameters and imaging without the use of ionising radiation.