- Aims to communicate what medical physics is and what medical physicists do to a broad audience
- Brings together an all-star cast of high-profile and award-winning scholars
- Appeals to the inquisitive science student who is searching for direction and career decisions
Since the discovery of the x-ray over 125 years ago, scientists and medical professionals alike have harnessed the power of the atom to heal and protect.
This book brings together an all-star cast of high-profile and award-winning scholars, introducing the general readership to an often unnoticed yet societally vital profession - medical physics. This collection of personal short stories offers an informal, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of these esteemed professionals, encapsulating their transformative "aha" moments within a whimsical hodgepodge of instructive and inspiring anecdotes. They even pass on words of wisdom discovered from their diverse experiences throughout the academic, clinical, and commercial worlds.
The wealth of information packed into these vignettes runs the gamut from practical career advice to lighthearted tales of humorous misadventure, providing a tremendous overview of the breadth and depth of medical physics as a career and discipline while imparting sage advice that extends well beyond the field. In his Foreword to this book Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, provides his strong endorsement of the life-saving work carried out by medical physicists and the profession as a whole.
From the general public to the budding student in search of career guidance, as well as young and seasoned practicing professionals, these thought-provoking, witty, and simply entertaining "untold stories" encourage the reader to reflect on and ponder the many enduring lessons born from unexpected life-turning events.
Table of Contents- What is Medical Physics? And Other Related Questions.-
- The Elevator that Couldn’t and the Laundry Cart that Could.-
- The Decades of Change.-
- Looking Back at 50 Years in Medical Physics — the Ugly, the Bad and the Good.-
- A Day in the Life of a Medical Physicist.-
- YOU Can Change the Medicine.-
- “How good are you?”.
- Starting and Living a Medical Physics Career: Pragmatism, Pitfalls and Strategies
- Rainstorm Over Kyoto: Technology Development and Interdisciplinary Collaboration at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- From Fourier Transforms to Surgical Imaging
- Gorilla in the RF Cage and Other Recollections
- The Physicist and the Flea Market: At the Birth of Modern Image-Guided Radiotherapy
- The Scariest Day of My Life
- The Goiânia Accident: A Candid and Personal Experience
- True Tales from India
- Introduction to 3D Medical Imaging: Of Mice and Men, Music and Mummies
- Medical Physics in Five Easy Job Descriptions
- Ever Bored? Not Likely!
- Lessons Learned on an Opportunistic Career Path
- Medical Physics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) of Image Interpretation
- Adventures of a Disruptive Medical Physics Innovator
- An Accidental Radiation Physicist
