The IAEA and the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics are strengthening cooperation on activities that promote the safe and effective use of ionizing radiation in medicine for diagnosis and treatment.
“As countries across the globe establish and expand their radiation medicine capacities to address the growing burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, quality assurance is essential for ensuring timely, effective and high-quality care,” noted Najat Mokhtar, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications. “The IAEA’s new Practical Arrangement with the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) builds on our history of collaboration in supporting the continent’s workforce.”
EFOMP serves as an umbrella organization for more than 10 000 medical physicists and clinical engineers from its 37 constituent national member organizations. With a mission to harmonize and advance medical physics in terms of the field’s professional, clinic and scientific expression across Europe, the federation applies physics to healthcare to benefits patients, staff, the general public, planet and space.
“I was delighted to sign a new agreement with the IAEA reaffirming our shared commitment to ensuring equitable access to quality healthcare, guided by the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’,” said Efi Koutsouveli, EFOMP’s president.
Since 2008, the IAEA and EFOMP have organized joint training courses including with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. EFOMP has also helped draft IAEA guidance documents; provided experts to support the IAEA’s human health programme; and promoted the use of the IAEA’s Quality Assurance Team in Radiation Oncology (QUATRO) audit methodology as a tool for quality improvement.
Under their new agreement, signed at the International Conference on Advances in Radiation Oncology, the IAEA and EFOMP will continue their scientific collaboration in medical physics to develop guidance documents including for clinical training and assessment purposes. In addition, they will jointly develop educational and training materials to further strengthen capacity building over the next three years.
On cancer care in particular, EFOMP will work closely with the IAEA’s Human Health programme to support Europe’s Rays of Hope Anchor Centres. As knowledge and capacity building hubs, these centres serve as a dedicated regional resource for other cancer facilities under the Agency’s flagship initiative to expand access to diagnostic imaging, nuclear medicine, radiation oncology and medical physics where it is needed most.
