Physics Department
A highly skilled and well-resourced Physics Department is essential to the provision of advanced radiotherapy services. Medical physicists, clinical engineers, technicians, dosimetrists and radiation therapists provide physics support in St. Luke's Hospital. This provides scientific and technical services for the entire radiation therapy, diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine processes.
Department staff take responsibility for equipment calibration, maintenance, and the data acquisition and calculation processes associated with treatment planning. Physics staff play a major role in the development of treatment delivery techniques, the management of equipment performance and the provision of detailed quality assurance programmes for the equipment used in radiation oncology, diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine. In addition, the physicist advises on radiation protection of both staff and patients.
The Physics Department fosters research and development activities with presentations to various national and international bodies, including the European Society of Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ESTRO), American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM), Irish Radiotherapy Physics Group (IRPG), the British Institute of Radiology (BIR), the Academy of Medical Laboratory Science (AMLS), and the British Irish Council Telemedicine Working Group. There have been a number of publications from the department in journals such as Medical Physics, Physics in Medicine and Biology and Radiotherapy and Oncology.
External Consultation
Physics department staff provide consultation services to a number of other hospitals and various national working / advisory groups for institutions such as the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII), Department of Health & Children, the HSE and the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) and the National Project for Radiation Oncology (NPRO), the Electro Technical Council of Ireland (ETCI). Dosimetric verification services have been provided by the department to other radiotherapy centres throughout the country.
