Dear colleagues and friends,

Volunteer organisations such as MPWB are an interesting lot. I had the privilege to be involved with a few medical physics ones and find some common features which are both challenging and encouraging:

1.       Working with colleagues who share similar expertise, experiences and aspirations is a privilege and pleasure.
2.       Most of us have daytime jobs – I am always aware that there is so much more I could do for MPWB (alas, there are risks to control, people to manage, QA to be organised and time sheets to be signed at the home front)
3.       Volunteer organisations rely on their members. There is no shortage of good will by everyone, but practicalities make involvement of members often difficult in particular in an organisation that is truly international. Time zones, cultural differences and the complexity of some tasks call for patience.
4.       Medical Physics is much more important than most people think. In most health care systems, there is appreciation of the importance of technology and computing; however, awareness of medical physics as the key profession in this space is often lacking. Therefore, medical physics is often an afterthought and not part of the initial planning.
5.       Keeping all this in mind we have tried to hit the refresh button in MPWB to:
a.       Introduce a management committee
b.       Try to be more active and regular in terms of communication
c.       Create a new logo
d.       Upgrade/update the webpage
e.       Launch a Poem competition for IDMP (more to be announced on IDMP)

Give us a bit of time and watch this space – we are committed to make this happen. Most importantly, we would like to get all members involved: if you have any ideas or would like to support a particular initiative, please get in touch.

Tomas

Tomas Kron, PhD, FIOMP

President MPWB

Director of Physical Sciences

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia

Tomas.Kron@petermac.org