By Dr Stephen Tronchin, Prof Eva Bezak, Prof M. Mahesh
This year we held an IOMP School during of the IUPESM World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Adelaide, Australia. The school brought together a global community of medical physicists, researchers, and students from around the world. It was a diverse program of eight high-quality lectures delivered by world-leading experts across five days, covering topics at the forefront of contemporary medical physics research and practice.
The first session on Radiation Safety & Protection covered the core principles of radiation protection, covering key international and national regulations and sharing methods to minimize exposure in the workplace. The second session covered Artificial Intelligence (AI), where the foundational principles of AI and machine learning where introduced, and insights into the technical components such as feature extraction, model training, validation workflows, and performance metrics was also discussed. The third session covered Dosimetry in Radiation Therapy, where the underlying physics of radiation dose and its measurement was introduced, as well as further discussions on neutron dosimetry and proton dosimetry, and how modern treatment techniques have reshaped dosimetric requirements. Session four covered MRI-Guided Linear Accelerators (MRI-Linacs), where participants learnt the fundamental principles of MRI-Linacs and explored the role of MRI-Linacs in the context of radiation therapy image guidance. The key safety considerations specific to MRI-Linacs was also discussed. The fifth session on Biostatistics highlighted the importance of proper statistical methods in research and clinical trials. Participants learnt to understand and apply key statistical methods for assessing agreement and bias between two measurement methods in clinical studies, as well as recognise the differences between correlation, agreement, and clinical acceptability when evaluating method comparison studies. The sixth session covered Spectral CT Physics, which included the underlying physics and clinical applications/prospects of dual-energy CT (DECT) and Photon-Counting CT (PCCT). The seventh session covered Image Quality Metrics, where participants learnt about the fundamental concepts of image quality metrics, and the importance of image quality to support clinical decisions. Participants also explored the reasoning being Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analysis and learnt to interpret a ROC curve. The final session covered Theranostics and Radiopharmaceuticals, which covered the principles of theranostics and the clinical applications of theranostics, and well as the MIRD based formalism for dosimetry in radiopharmaceutical therapy.
Overall, we were very happy with the IOMP School held during the IUPESM World Congress 2025. The lectures presented throughout the IOMP School were of high scientific quality, and the topics were of relevance to both current clinical practice and future innovation. The lectures provided an opportunity for participants to deepen their knowledge of important medical physics topics under the guidance of leading experts in the field. The IOMP School had a strong attendance, with over 250 participants attending throughout the conference. The IOMP is very proud to have hosted such a valuable educational experience. We would like to say a very big thank you to those who presented a lecture at the IOMP School – and thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the sessions.