INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MEDICAL PHYSICS (IDMP) 2026
IDMP 2026 Message by the IOMP President
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
On behalf of the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP), I welcome you to the International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP) on 7 November.
This year’s theme, “Advancing Global Health Equity: The Ethical Foundation of Medical Physics,” focuses on the responsibility of our profession to support fair access to safe and effective healthcare.
According to WHO (https://www.who.int/health-topics/health-equity#tab=tab_1): “Equity is the absence of unfair, avoidable or remediable differences among groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially, economically, demographically, or geographically or by other dimensions of inequality (e.g. sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexual orientation). Health is a fundamental human right. Health equity is achieved when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being.”
In this aspect, medical physicists play an important role by ensuring quality and safety of medical technologies, supporting training and capacity building, and working with multidisciplinary clinical teams to improve patient care in all settings.
Contributing to health equity means applying our expertise where it is most needed, supporting consistent standards, and helping reduce gaps in access to healthcare between regions and populations, including developing novel and affordable point-of-care technologies that can be used in resource limited environments.
To mark this theme, IOMP has announced a poster competition, already receiving submissions from around the world. We are also preparing a special IDMP webinar in November relevant to the topic – so stay tuned for further announcements. And while we hope that you will participate in the IOMP activities, we also encourage all countries to organize their own activities and prepare presentations as part of the celebration.
We look forward to your active participation.
Eva Bezak
President, IOMP
IDMP 2026 Message by the IDMP Coordinator
Dear Medical Physicists from around the globe,
This year’s theme for the International Day of Medical Physics is:
“Advancing global health equity: The ethical foundation of medical physics”
As members of the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP), we recognize that advancing global health equity is not only a goal, but an ethical priority of the medical physics profession. Medical physicists play a vital role in ensuring safe and effective therapies, high-quality diagnostic imaging, adequate radiation protection, and help develop new emerging technologies. When there is inequitable access to quality medical physics services, this may lead to inequities in health outcomes.
Around the world, access to safe radiation therapy, diagnostic imaging, nuclear medicine, quality assurance programs, and trained medical physicists varies dramatically. In many countries, shortages of trained professionals, inadequate infrastructure, and limited regulatory frameworks may impact patient safety and limit access to new life-saving technologies.
Advancing global health equity requires, among others, that high-quality medical physics services are universally accessible, so that every patient can receive the highest possible standard of care.
As a global organisation, the IOMP has both influence and responsibility, and is uniquely positioned to work toward the global health equity by, for example:
- Expanding accessible online education.
- Fostering collaborations across borders.
- Supporting regional training centres and mentorship programs.
- Developing guidance on responsible adoption of advanced technologies.
- Encouraging collaborative research and knowledge-sharing networks that reduce the global research gap.
- Advocating data-driven transformation and deployment of automated, objective and standardised methods to expand medical physicist toolkit and make our work more accessible in modern healthcare.
- Encouraging sustainable technology implementation by ensuring that any equipment donations or installations are accompanied by training, maintenance planning, and quality assurance systems.
As medical physicists, our work is often focused on patient safety, radiation protection, scientific integrity, and technological innovation. Let’s use this Internation Day of Medical Physics to remind ourselves of the importance of advancing global health equity, so we can ensure that every patient – regardless of geography, socioeconomic status, gender, or political context – has access to safe and high-quality medical physics services, so they can receive the best possible care.
As a part of the International Day of Medical Physics, we will be holding a poster competition, and we are very excited to see your visual interpretation of this year’s theme, stay tuned for the call to posters.
With many thanks,
Erato Stylianou Markidou and Stephen Tronchin
IDMP 2026 Coordinators
IDMP 2026 theme:
“Advancing Global Health Equity: The Ethical Foundation of Medical Physics”
Dear Colleagues,
IOMP is seeking creative poster designs for the Internation Day of Medical Physics (IDMP 2026).
The theme for this year’s IDMP is: “Advancing Global Health Equity: The Ethical Foundation of Medical Physics”
Please follow these conditions for poster submission:
- One page.
- In English.
- Reflects the above theme.
- One poster per person.
- The deadline to submit a poster is Tuesday 5th May at 12 noon GMT.
- Submit posters to Stephen Tronchin, IDMP co-coordinator, at [email protected]
- For reference to previous posters please visit: https://www.iomp.org/idmp/
- The winning poster will appear on the cover of the June edition of eMPW (the official electronic publication of the IOMP).
- The winning poster will be used to help celebrate IDMP 2026, and will be posted and the IOMP website and on social media.
- The use of AI-generated content is allowed. We would like to see new, creative ideas, and we accept the use of AI to help create the poster.
- If you use any AI-generated content or images from the internet, you should make sure you are not breaking copyright laws (e.g., using protected images without permission).
- IOMP reserves the right to advise minor corrections (e.g., colors, image correction, wording) on the winning poster, with the authors consent, to ensure better relevance with the IOMP’s identity and the IDMP theme.
The best poster that receives the highest voting score from the IOMP ExCom will be adopted by IOMP. The winner will be announced and acknowledged. We look forward to seeing your creative designs!
Kind regards,
Stephen Tronchin and Erato Stylianou Markidou
IDMP 2026 Coordinators
Will be announced soon.