Dillard University announces addition of medical physics program

By Michael Patrick Welch
Contributing Writer

Ranked as a top producer of African Americans with bachelor’s degrees in physics (says the American Institute of Physics, 2012) and among the top 50 colleges whose graduates earn doctorates in the sciences (National Science Foundation, 2013), Dillard University will now offer its own Medical Physics concentration, under the school’s physics and pre-engineering program.

“To my knowledge, Dillard is the only private four-year college in the state to offer a concentration in medical physics,” says Dillard physics professor Dr. Abdalla Darwish. “The skills learned in the medical physics concentration will provide students with the training to…operate and maintain diagnostic imaging devices such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMRs), ultrasound and X-rays, as well as the ability to analyze the resulting images.”

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine, which publishes the journal Medical Physics, describes medical physicists as being concerned with three areas, the first being clinical service and consultation. This includes radiation oncology such as the planning of radiation treatments for cancer patients. The medical physicist also contributes clinical and scientific advice and resources to solve problems in a vast array of medical disciplines. Medical physicist are active also in research and development of new types of radiation treatment, imaging procedures that utilize infrared and ultrasound sources, particle irradiation, and the use of computers in medicine.

Medical physicists can work in areas as disparate as cancer, heart disease (working on blood flow and oxygenation) and metal illness (recording, correlation and interpretation of bioelectric potentials). “Medical physicists have many fields they can go into,” says Dr. Darwish. “The job market today, they want people who can do many things, not just one thing. So a medical physicist can work in many capacities.”

The curriculum of medical physics will prepare students for graduate school and to work in several areas of medical physics, including imaging medical physics and nuclear medical physics. Dillard’s medical imaging course consists of a general introduction to the tools and techniques used in medical imaging, the typical imaging devices currently in use, and the underlying physics involved. Medical imaging and ionization radiation laboratory courses augment Dillard’s already well-established physics curriculum, to give students a hands-on introduction to imaging equipment. The ionization radiation laboratory itself gives students a place to study radiation, radioisotope techniques, and radioactive tracers, with emphasis on the safe handling and storage of radioisotopes.

A major focus of Dillard’s program will be advancing x-ray technology. “We have every kind of x-ray machine at Dillard,” says Dr. Darwish. “You can take what you learned in the hospital and go run x-ray machines for the oil and gas industry.

“We also have many types of lasers in a state-of-the-art laser lab—a huge one!” Dr. Darwish becomes almost giddy when describing all the modern gear his new program provides. “We are supported by the Department of Defense, especially the Airforce and the Army, so we are able to do everything from kill caner with lasers, to laser liposuction.

Another focus of any good Medical Physics department will be teaching, via faculty appointments at universities on both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Dillard’s medical physicists can be taught to teach subjects from biophysics, to radiobiology, to the use of various medical machine technologies.

“Right now the job market wants people who know many things, not just one thing,” Dr. Darwish points out. “So there are a lot of jobs out there for students of this program.”

Dillard added its new medical physics concentration to help meet the city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana’s need. With UNO’s physics program under probation, perhaps soon to be cut altogether, Dillard’s new medical physics program will be increasingly valuable.

“In New Orleans we have a shortage of medical physicists in general,” says Dr. Darwish. “After Katrina many found a new life somewhere else. Once they find another life, they never came back. And for us to hire people from outside the state, it costs the state a lot of money. But if we are educating them here, then we can hire from within.” He ads, “When the staff is transient—they come and go from out of state—you don’t get the same quality. So right now in New Orleans, the field is wide open, there are just not many trained people to fill these positions—yet.”

This article originally published in the December 15, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.