HU, EVMS PARTNER FOR MEDICAL PHYSICS GRADUATE PROGRAM

Hampton, VA - Hampton University, the Eastern Virginia Medical School, and Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, have recently established a graduate program specializing in medical physics. The co-directors for this new program are Dr. Cynthia Keppel, physics professor at Hampton University, and Dr. Ping Wong, associate professor of radiation oncology at EVMS.

There are several graduate students already enrolled in preparation for the program, and many have been inquiring and applying for the 2003-2004 academic year. Students will take lecture-type classes at Hampton, and clinical rotation classes at EVMS and Sentara, but will receive degrees from Hampton University.

"They can do their thesis research work at either place, depending on their faculty advisor and choice of topic. It's a real partnership," said Keppel. She also noted that "this is the first program of this type at an historically black college."

While you may not see them, there are professional medical physicists in every hospital in the country. They are professionals in the treatment of cancer by ionizing radiation (radiation oncology), in diagnostic imaging with x-rays, ultrasound and nuclear magnetic resonance (diagnostic radiology), in diagnostic imaging with radioisotopes (nuclear medicine) and in the study of radiation hazards and radiation protection (health physics).

While there are over 5,000 medical physicists practicing in North America today, medical physics is a profession in which there is a steadily growing demand for trained individuals –a demand outpacing the academic training programs. The manpower needs in medical physics are expected to grow an average of about seven percent per year in the foreseeable future.

The Hampton University physics department’s graduate physics program has received several national awards for research excellence, and houses the Center for Advanced Medical Instrumentation. The faculty of Eastern Virginia Medical School will provide clinical and academic resources in this program, to train masters degree level medical physicists at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital.

Students will be trained in state-of-the-art facilities at Sentara for medical physics research, including two Varian 2100C accelerators with MLC; one Nucletron Simulix-HP simulator; one GE Hilite CT scanner with Advantage CT sim workstation and one Radionics Xknife-4 TPS (with Image Fusion 2.0). The students will also be using one GammaMed HDR; one CMS TPS with four workstations; two Varian VariSeed 6.7 TPS; one Scanditronix/Wellhofer RFA-300 water phantom and one Vidar-16 plus film digitizer. Special procedures include LDR/HDR, ultrasound-guided prostate seed implant, intravascular brachytherapy (Novoste and Guidant), intraoperative radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery/radiotherapy.

For more information about the program call the Hampton University physics department at 727-5277.