Author: Jenghwa Chang, Marissa Joyce Vaccarelli 👨🔬
Affiliation: Northwell, Hofstra University Medical Physics Program 🌍
Purpose: Our University has a CAMPEP-accredited Master of Science (MS) in Medical Physics program with an established curriculum. Prior, ethics and professionalism themes were taught in an introductory medical physics course, also covering additional areas such as computational and statistical techniques. The goal was to develop and integrate a dedicated course for “Professionalism and Ethics” in our graduate curriculum.
Methods: CAMPEP requirements for Medical Physics graduate programs include “Professionalism and Ethics” as one of seven “core topics.” Design of the new “Professionalism and Ethics” course for our Program began with a literature search of subthemes listed in the CAMPEP guidelines. AAPM Task Group Report 365 also provided an extensive bibliography. Relevant AAPM task group reports, AAPM MPPG reports, ASTRO & ACR practice guidelines. Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System (ROILS) case reports were and case studies from the Medical Physics Leadership Academy (MPLA) were also incorporated into the course. The proposed syllabus was reviewed and approved by our Program Director, Graduate Committee as well as the University Philosophy Department.
Results: The official course name was finalized as: “Ethical Conduct and Professionalism in Medical Physics,” and was initially offered to first-year students in the Fall 2023 semester for one semester hour. The course was organized into three main areas: historical context (1), applications of ethics in medical physics (2) and professionalism for medical physics (3). Case study assignments, involving ROILS reports, MPLA cases and series of articles entitled “The Radiation Boom,” by The New York Times, were heavily utilized as a key hallmark of the course design innovation in its applied concepts and subthemes.
Conclusion: A dedicated “core topic” course for “Professionalism and Ethics” was successfully developed and offered at our CAMPEP-accredited MS in Medical Physics Program. Through offering this new course, we can improve scheduling flexibility for our students.