Cross-disciplinary Training in Medical Physics

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Medical Physics Graduate Program at Duke University is a rapidly growing, vibrant training program for students at the M.S. and PhD level. Its 42 faculty members come from the departments of radiology, radiation oncology, physics, biomedical engineering, and occupational and environmental safety (health physics), and include many internationally recognized experts. The program provides intensive classroom, research, and clinical training in all four of the main academic areas of medical physics: diagnostic imaging physics, radiation oncology physics, nuclear medicine physics, and medical health physics. It is one of the few training programs in the U.S. with a full training curriculum in each of these four areas. Because of its faculty expertise and strong curriculum in these four areas, it provides the opportunity for a unique interdisciplinary training experience for PhD students. Current cutting-edge work in medical physics requires scientists to have expertise in more than one area of study. This training program is unique in that it will provide each trainee specific and intensive training in at least two subdisciplines of medical physics. Specific elements of the training program include: (1) implementing a curriculum that provides core training plus individualized high-level training in both a major and minor academic track of study, (2) providing students with both a principal mentor and a co-mentor to best guide them in their cross-disciplinary training, (3) training students in the clinical elements of their major academic track, in order to provide a sound context for their research, (4) providing fellowship funding for the first three years of graduate study, to be followed by support from advisors, (5) providing opportunities for 3-6 month off-site learning experiences related to the particular topic of each student's research, (6) providing travel funds for students to attend a scientific meeting beginning in their first year, so that they will catch a vision for high-level medical physics research as early as possible, (7) recruiting and retaining students of the very highest caliber, paying particular attention to building a diverse student body, and (8) adequately training students in the ethics of research so that they can build sound careers. Relevance: This training program will produce scientists trained in more than one area of medical physics, who will thus be best able to advance interdisciplinary research in the field.