Description:

 

Medical physicists apply physics and technical skills to the practice of medicine to help prevent, diagnose and treat many kinds of diseases and health conditions. They develop, test and evaluate specialist equipment and procedures in many areas including radiotherapy, nuclear medicine, laser technology and physiological monitoring. As clinical scientists in The National Health Service (NHS) , medical physicists have a central role in developing, planning and implementing patient treatment programmes. This role is closely linked to that of a clinical engineer.

 

While the majority work in the NHS, others are employed in medical equipment manufacturing companies, regulatory authorities, universities, research organisations and companies using radioactive materials.

 

 

 

Career Paths:

 

Medical physics...

•  ...involves engaging in technical procedures - forming part of a patient's care and treatment.

• ...often involves planning and supervising radiotherapy treatment in discussion with medical and other staff.

• ...may involve working with patients in a range of roles, for example, explaining treatment procedures and possible side effects.

• ...could lead to a career involving Liaising closely with doctors to add technical results to patient reports.

• ...could lead to a career involving Training and advising medical physics technicians on new equipment and protocols.

• ...could lead to a career of Lecturing and training other health professionals, including radiographers, nurses and doctors in clinical practice.

• ...could lead to a career involving Negotiating and agreeing changes to patient diagnosis techniques in response to new procedures, negotiating and agreeing changes to patient diagnosis techniques in response to new procedures, processing complex patient image data, acting as the on-call duty physicist to respond to problems and provide advice and technical assistance, developing techniques to show what is happening in the body using x-ray, MRI, laser, ultrasound and ultraviolet technologies and optimising use of these, researching new equipment developments and techniques, reviewing existing local practice, advising on procurement of new equipment and compiling reports to initiate changes, commissioning new or upgraded equipment to achieve compatibility with existing machines, monitoring equipment to ensure that correct and consistent results or outputs are achieved and ensuring that on-going maintenance routines are followed, drafting and developing policies for operating equipment, troubleshooting problems with hardware and software or undertaking audit visits to hospital departments to check compliance with health and safety legislation, including personnel monitoring, decontamination routines, radioactive wastemanagement and radiation detection advice.

• ...could lead to a career change to study medicine and become a doctor.

• ...teaches you valuable and transferable skills and knowledge that is applicable to many career roles.

• ...provides you with a broad range of career options.

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Education:

 

A degree in a relevant subject at a 2:1 or higher is required for entry. Relevant subjects are determined by individual NHS trusts and will be specified in individual job advertisements. However it is likely that relevant subjects will be degrees relating to physics or engineering.

Most students train to become a medical physicist by studying for an MsC in medical physics whilst working for the NHS. Most graduates enter through the NHS STP under the medical physics pathway which can be paid for by the NHS. This leads to an MsC and a certificate of achievement which are the necessary qualifications to become a registered medical physics.

 

Currently there are three preferred institutions providing the MsC these are: King’s College London, University of Liverpool and Newcastle University. The training lasts for three years, and is roughly 1/3 academic based and 2/3 work based within the NHS.

 

Work experience within a hospital medical physicist department. This will help you decide on a specialist area, as well as strengthen applications for training schemes, for which entry competitive and there are many more applicants than places.

 

 

 

Average salary:

 

Depeding on your experience, employer and position, the average salary will vary a lot from person to person. However, for starting graduates that are employed by the NHS, of which a large majority of medical phyicists undergraduates are, their average salaries are...

 

Starting graduates on NHS:

Band 6 – £25,000

Band 7 – £30,460 to £40,157

Band 8 – £38,851 to £80,810

Band 9 – £77,000 - £97,000