As an example of how Medical Physicists and Biomedical Engineers provide scientific and technical support in the treatment of patients, consider cancer, one of the leading causes of death throughout the world. Cancer is treated by surgery, chemotherapy, or radiotherapy, either alone or in combination. With radiotherapy, patients are exposed to calibrated high doses of carefully directed ionizing radiation. The medical physics team has a vital role working alongside doctors and radiographers to ensure the integrity of the radiation beam.
Medical Physicists and Biomedical Engineers work alongside other clinical staff in supporting treatment for diseases other than cancer. For example, phototherapy with ultraviolet radiation is used to treat patients with skin diseases such as psoriasis. Here Physicists have an important role in ensuring patients receive the prescribed dose of UV radiation.
Before a patient undergoes an operation, a surgeon may ask a Medical Physicist or Biomedical Engineer for specific tests to be done to enable the surgery to be targeted more effectively.
Minimally invasive surgery (laproscopy) significantly reduces the actual invasive nature of surgery, allowing a faster and less-stressful convalescence by the patient. Lasers are used in many types of surgery, providing precise and less traumatic incisions, and also allowing both destruction of diseased tissue and the joining of healthy tissue. And, of course, there is the cardio-bypass machine, allowing surgeons to operate directly on the heart, saving literally hundreds of thousands of lives throughout the world. The implanted pacemaker and defibrillator are also in widespread use to overcome electrical conduction problems of the heart. All of these life-saving devices, and many others, are the fruits of collaboration between the medical community and physical scientists represented by Medical Physicists and Biomedical Engineers.
Implantable devices are used to replace or augment defective or failing organs within the body. Medical Physicists and Biomedical Engineers have made outstanding contributions in developing these devices.
From simple, but vital, screws and plates to help mend broken bones, to actual joint and heart valve replacement and the implantable insulin pump to treat diabetes, to the yet to be perfected artificial heart, implants are improving the function and prolonging the lives of countless patients.
Regional Medical Physics Department, Newcastle General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 6BE, UK.
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Regional Medical Physics Department, a Clinical Directorate of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Copyright ©1999-2008 All Rights Reserved. Revised 28 April, 2008.
