Education and training
Professional training
The medical physics department actively engages in internal and external training and education opportunities. The department is accredited by the National School for Healthcare Science (NSHCS) to provide training for medical physics and clinical scientific computing trainees appointed onto the Scientific Training Programme (STP) and Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST). The department is also accredited by the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) to provide clinical science training (ACS route 2) and clinical technologist training.
Teaching
We contribute to undergraduate and post-graduate teaching programmes at the University of Southampton, for example, teaching on the medical physics option of the BSc/MPhys physics course. We also provide introductory lectures on medical imaging for the Biomedical Engineering MSc, run within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences. There are opportunities for these students to undertake projects within the department.
Academic supervision
Several members of staff are named supervisors for PhD projects at the University of Southampton (within the faculties of Medicine and Engineering and Physical Sciences), and members of staff have successfully completed part-time PhDs whilst employed within the department. We also contribute to the supervision of BMedSci and MMedSci medical students who carry out projects either within the department or in related areas. See our individual team’s research and development pages for more information about the kind of projects we are involved in across the department.
Other activities
Staff are involved in delivering several well-established training courses within and outside of the Trust. This includes FRCR (Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists) part 1 physics lectures, coordinated across the southeast NHS region. Through recent expansion of our virtual learning facilities, we run a successful radiation protection supervisor course widely used across the UK. Furthermore, we provide laser safety courses at several levels from awareness training to BMLA accredited Core of Knowledge courses. The department has also established a radiation safety training framework adopted by the Trust for role specific mandatory training. We also provide nuclear medicine physics and MRI physics training for other staff groups, such as radiographers.
The department holds regular scientific seminars, and these provide a platform for staff to present any research or development projects they are involved in and to feedback new developments from the wider scientific community following attendance at external scientific meetings for example.