As our community faces uncertain challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic, MPWB feels obliged to recognize this and share some important thoughts with our community.

First, it is of paramount importance that you follow directives of your local health authorities. Many jurisdictions are implementing strategies to mitigate the spread of the virus through social distancing and density reduction measures. The World Health Organization has helpful information on the public and health care workers. Please refer to your local and national health authorities for local directives and best practices. As healthcare workers, we have a collective responsibility to the patients and the public we serve.

Second, in a time of crisis it is always helpful to undertake some self-reflection. Many lives are being disrupted with these challenges: daycare closures, workplace changes, and many of you may be feeling the direct impacts of the virus yourselves. These events are occurring at a rapid rate and can be unsettling. We want to assure the MPWB community to ‘Keep Calm and Curie On!’. We encourage you to stay healthy physically and mentally! The US CDC has resources for the latter.

These challenges will certainly impact the medical physics community. Many centers are unable to operate to their capacity, and others have their resources stretched thin. There is evidence that these challenges will persist for several weeks, if not months. This can be particularly frustrating for Medical Physicists who are natural problem solvers. We are particularly concerned over how this pandemic will affect low and middle income countries and their ability to safely deliver patient care. If you have ideas or thoughts on how we might be able to help solve these problems, we encourage you to share them with your local leaders. Please also feel free to use our Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn social- media channels to share your thoughts. If you have thoughts or suggestions on how MPWB might be able to help with this pandemic, please share them through our social media channels or through medphyswb@gmail.com.

Open Syllabus Project Volunteer Drive:

The Open Syllabus project is now underway and a Steering Committee has been assembled. We are starting the project for Radiation Oncology Residents by creating training modules as defined by the IAEA. These modules are topics covered in a residency program. Specific modules are 

• Clinical Introduction
• Radiation Safety and Protection
• Radiation Dosimetry
• Radiation Therapy-External Beam
• External Beam Treatment Planning
• Brachytherapy
• Professional Studies and Quality Management
• Research, Development and Teaching

The next step is to assemble teams for each module and identify, collate, and prioritize online resources that cover learning objectives in each of the modules. These resources include things like presentations, YouTube videos, and other easily accessible online resources which can be hyperlinked to learning objectives. We are looking for volunteers to help collate, organize, and prioritize this content. If you have expertise in one of the following areas and are willing to volunteer your time, please email us at medphyswb@gmail.com. Expectations for volunteers include information flow via email, attending video/teleconference meetings, finding and prioritizing content for the Open Syllabus. Please let us know if you have a preference for which module you would like to volunteer for.

For those who are unable to be directly involved - we would appreciate any presentations, lectures, videos, etc that you or your institution would be willing to share via medphyswb@gmail.com. 

For those who have reached out to us in the past, thank you! We will be contacting you shortly.

Earlier this month, MPWB was excited to learn that our very own Jake was chosen to receive the International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP) Award for 2019!

The award "recognizes excellence in Medical Physics with a particular view of promoting medical physics to a larger audience and highlighting the contributions medical physicists make for patient care."

The IOMP represents over 25,000 medical physicists worldwide and 87 adhering national member organizations, including MPWB as an affiliated organization. 

Great job and congratulations!

Happy International Day of Medical Physics! #IDMP2019 is about bringing together communities and celebrating excellence in #medphys. Let us build on our #partnerships in the pursuit of equal access to #globalhealth, and celebrate the legacy of Marie Skłodowska Curie. 

Learn more about IDMP activities on the IOMP website!

The Global Oncology Committee of the Canadian Association of Radiation Oncologists (CARO) is sponsoring a webinar series with the goal of disseminating knowledge, discussing issues, spreading interest, and advocating for more impact in Global Oncology. The following is the information on speaker number 3 in this series:

Speaker: Dr. Jacob Van Dyk.

Time: 29 October 2019, 6:00-7:00 pm eastern time.

Title: Global Challenges in Radiation Oncology: A Medical Physics Perspective. 

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/538502700

Meeting ID: 538 502 700 

One tap mobile : +1 647 558 0588, 538502700# Canada 

Dial by your location: +1 647 558 0588 Canada

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/airZROBPl  

All interested in Global Oncology activities are invited to join.

On August 21, starting 8 AM the Medical Physics for World Benefit website will be offline for 24 hours  annual servicing and updates to make the website more mobile friendly. The website will be up on August 22 at 8 AM.

Please contact  medphyswb@gmail.com for any inquiries.

Thank you,

The MPWB Team

In the latest edition of COMP InterACTIONs (the organization's quarterly newsletter), MPWB provided an article outlining some of the challenges in delivering radiation therapy in the developing world. You an access a copy of the article here.

Early last year Board members from MPWB submitted a publication for Medical Physics International (the official publication of the IOMP) outlining the Vision and Mission of our organization. You can access the article on their website or download a copy here. 

Please see our latest Newsletter for updates on MPWB activities

• Annual General Membership meeting in Nashville TN
  
• AGM election details at Nashville
• Renewing your membership!
• Information meeting at COMP-CARO in Montreal
• Updates from the World Congress meeting at Prague

Annual membership meeting MPWB will hold its annual membership meeting on Tuesday 31 July 2018 from 12:15 to 1:45 in room Music Row 6 on Level Two in the Omni Nashville Hotel at the annual meeting of the AAPM in Nashville, TN. This is the hotel that is the AAPM Headquarters and hosts all the AAPM committee meetings. The meeting will be open to all people interested in MPWB and its activities; however, any formal voting will be restricted to members only.