International Medical Physics Certification Board

Raymond K. Wu, PhD, Chairman, IOMP Professional Relations Committee

The medical physics profession is relatively young compared with other fields of physics. The International Labor Organization (ILO) did not have medical physicist on its list of professions until this year. Even now, it lists medical physicist with physicists and astronomers instead of under the health profession category. The levels of recognition among professionals in many countries are determined by the ILO classification systems. Many countries often regard medical physicists working in clinical environments as technicians and afford few professional opportunities to keep current their professional knowledge. Medical physicists working in academic environments may find it easier to achieve the level of recognition consistent with the skills and knowledge required by a medical physicist. Those working in non-academic environments are not very satisfied with their employment status. Therefore in many countries there is a shortage of clinically qualified medical physicists. At many international meetings of medical physicists, such problems have drawn attention. In hope of improving the quality of patient care given by clinical medical physicists, a group of medical physics organizations formed the International Medical Physics Certification Board recently.

This recent action actually started on May 6, 2008, when the American College of Medical Physics (ACMP) and the International Affairs Committee of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) co-sponsored an International Medical Physicists Symposium during the ACMP Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington. The goal of the Symposium was to explore means of improving the quality of medical physics practice. After the Symposium, some participants requested the ACMP to explore the possibility of assisting with the formation of an International Certification Board since ACMP was the original sponsor of the American Board of Medical Physics. In December 2008, the IBMP Constituting Panel was created by the ACMP Board of Chancellors. Dr. Edward Sternick of Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Medical Center was appointed the Chairman. Other members of the Constituting Panel are Maria-Ester Brandan, PhD, of Mexico, K Y Cheung, PhD, of Hong Kong, Ibrahim Duhaini, MS, of Lebanon, Prof. Yimin Hu of China, Siyong Kim, PhD, of USA, Anchali Krisanachinda, PhD, of Thailand, Josef Novotny, PhD, of Czech Republic, Ervin B. Podgorsak, PhD, of Canada, Timothy Solberg, PhD, of USA, Tae Suk Suh, PhD, of South Korea, Arun Chougule, PhD, of India, N. Suntharalingam, PhD, and Raymond Wu, PhD, both of USA. In the following year, the Constituting Panel held two meetings and a symposium entitled “Creating an International Medical Physics Credentialing Board” in May in Virginia USA.

The Constituting Panel will work on guidelines and standards but will not be involved with the creation or the operation of the certification board. In early 2009, the IOMP Professional Relations Committee, chaired by K.Y. Cheung, established a Task Group to take on this task. The Chairman of the Task Group is the author of this article. One of the first jobs of the Task Group was to identify member countries interested in creating such a certification process at the international level. In the World Congress 2009 in Munich, the progress of the IOMP Task Group was the topic of a report to the Executive Committee and the Council. Two meetings of the Task Group attracted a large number of delegates. Between the two meetings, the presentation “Creating an Independent International Medical Physics Board” was given in the “Education & Training in AFOMP Region Special Session”. Delegates interested in the initiative were asked to involve their national medical physics organizations and discuss in depth if such an international body is really needed, and if the organization will be willing to contribute a one-time fee of $100 to $500 to become a Charter Member. It was suggested to limit the number of Charter Members to ten, and to include large and small national medical physics organizations.

The certification initiative was discussed within the IOMP Executive Committee (EXCOM) in subsequent Virtual Meetings through May 2010. The IOMP leadership expressed support of the initiative in principle because of the potential of improving the quality of clinical medical physicists and the profession. It recognized that creating a certification system would be a difficult endeavor which would take long time and careful planning, and that it would be more practical to work with countries which already have their own certification programs at the beginning. It also recommended the Board to avoid legal liabilities for work performed by the certified individuals. IOMP had been working on establishing policy statements on the roles and responsibilities of medical physicists, and the education and training requirements. The guidelines for certification should be consistent with the policy statements. The IOMP EXCOM clarified that the Education and Training Committee would task itself to accredit education and training programs, but not certification programs. The EXCOM devoted some time in Virtual Meetings to highlight the three existing methods to identify qualified medical physicists. In some countries there are directives in force defining precisely the kind of professional work which is restricted to medical physicists qualified to be listed in registries of government authorities. In other countries the certification systems are created by professional organizations and recognized voluntarily by professional organizations and hospitals only. In between is the third group which is to encourage government authorities to consider all medical physicists when certified are qualified to perform certain categories of professional work.

As of May 2010, the following eleven organizations had resolved to be Charter Members – ABFM, ACMP, ACPSEM, CSMP, CSMPT, FMOFM, HKAMP, IMPS, KSMP, LAMP, and NAMP¹. The voting persons and alternates were identified. All except two attended the 3rd International Medical Physics Symposium jointly sponsored by ACMP, AAPM, and IOMP, held in San Antonio, USA in May 25, 2010. In addition, six persons connected via the internet using Webex with audio and visual capabilities and participated in the Symposium live. Before the Symposium, the voting persons met two times, and made the following resolutions – adopt the name International Medical Physics Certification Board (IMPCB), consider May 23^rd 2010 to be the date the organization was formed, designate Secretary/Treasurer Ti-Chuang Chiang to lead a committee to incorporate the organization, and open a bank account, and designate Edward Sternick to form a committee to draft the guidelines for certification. The resolutions were later ratified unanimously by email votes by all eleven organizations. Click here for meeting minutes. The presentations are available in the IMPCB website. Click here to see the presentations.

There is plenty of work to be done before we will see the first medical physicist given the qualification of being certified by the IMPCB. It is prudent to first work with the existing national systems of certification, and design a well documented process to validate if the standards described in the guidelines are fully met by the national system. The Board will then be able to vote and approve if all medical physicists certified by the national system should be eligible to apply for certificates from the IMPCB. The next step is to use the experience to help other countries to create their own certification boards. Only then the IMPCB will accept more national medical physics organizations as general members.

To follow the work-in-progress, please visit this website www.IMPCB.org

Footnote:

1. The acronyms stand for Associação Brasileira de Fisica Medica, American College of Medical Physics, Australasian College of Physical Scientists and Engineers in Medicine, Chinese Society of Medical Physics, Chinese Society of Medical Physics – Taipei, Federación Mexicana de Organizaciones de Física Médica, Hong Kong Association of Medical Physics, Iraqi Medical Physics Society, Korean society of Medical Physics, Lebanese Association Of Medical Physics, and Nepalese Association of Medical Physicists.

2. The ILO ISCO-08 document may be found in the www.ILO.org website. Search for "wcms_172572.pdf", and download the pdf file.

Last update: Dec 26, 2013