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Physics department

Mission Statement

“The Physics department at the Hermitage Medical Clinic contributes to maintain and improve the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of healthcare services through patient-oriented activities. This requires expert action, involvement or advice regarding the specification, selection, acceptance testing, commissioning, quality assurance/control for optimised clinical use of medical devices. Hence minimising patient risk and maximising protection from associated physical agents (e.g., x-rays, electromagnetic fields, radionuclides) including the prevention of unintended or accidental exposures”

Physics Staff members:

Mohamed Galal Ibrahim – Head of Physics Department
Aine Maxwell – Senior Physicist
Catherine Rahill – Senior Physicist
Ismail Ahmed – Senior Physicist
James Connolly – Senior Physicist
Caroline Banahan – Physicist
Mellissa Gunnoo – Physicist
Natasha Deans – Physicist
Tapihwa Mabvaro – Physicist

Services Provided by the Physics Department

Physics department provides service for:

Radiotherapy

  • Acceptance and commissioning (LINACs/TPSs/Detectors)

  • Quality assurance for different machines

  • Planning

    • 3DCRT
    • IMRT
    • SRS and SBRT using Cyberknife TPS
  • Patient specific QA
    • SRS
    • SBRT
    • IMRT
    • 3DCRT complex plans
  • I-125 Brachytherapy
    • Planning
    • Seed calibration and tracking
    • Sr-90 stability checks for different detectors assemblies
    • Research and development
    • Education and staff training

Radiology and Nuclear Medicine

  • Provide medical physics support in;
    • Diagnostic Radiology – general radiology, fluoroscopy, dental, mammography, CT, ultrasound and MRI
    • Interventional Radiology
    • Cardiology
    • Nuclear Medicine (Radiopharmacy, SPECT/CT, PET/CT
    • Radiotherapy kV imaging
  • Medical Physics Expert in Diagnostic Imaging
  • Quality assurance and optimisation of ionising and non-ionising equipment
  • Management of seal and unseal radioactive sources
  • Research and development
  • Education and staff training

Radiation Protection

  • Radiation dose calculations, staff radiation monitoring, shielding calculations

  • Support and training of Radiation Safety Officers (RSOs)

  • Radiation protection training of hospital staff

  • Point of contact for staff and Radiation Protection Advisor

  • RSO for Radiotherapy

  • RSO for Nuclear Medicine

List of publication and scientific activities:

  1. Protecting a CT simulator room to accommodate a Cyberknife facility (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25855074)
  2. Dosimetric and mechanical characteristics of a commercial dynamic mMLC used in SRS (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21859024)
  3. Pathway for Scanning Patients with MR Conditional Implantable Cardioverter-Difibrillators (Poster) – Irish Association of Physicists in Medicine (IAPM) Annual Scientific Meeting 2015
  4. Cyberknife Prostate planning and QA (Poster) – Irish Association of Physicists in Medicine (IAPM) Annual Scientific Meeting 2015
  5. Comparison of 3D and 4D Radiotherapy Planning Techniques (Poster) – Irish Association of Physicists in Medicine (IAPM) Annual Scientific Meeting 2015
  6. Cyberknife Prostate Planning & QA, Physics Overview (Presentation) – Current Treatments for Prostate Cancer Symposium Hermitage Medical Clinic Saturday 11th October 2014
  7. Implementation of Cyberknife into Clinical Practice (Poster) –International conference on radiation medicine (ICRM), Riyadh, KSA 2014
  8. To Implement 2D Array in IMRT QA (Poster) – Irish Association of Physicists in Medicine (IAPM) Annual Scientific Meeting 2013
  9. IMRT using XiO® from start to QA –Prostate Study (Presentation) – Biennial TPS Users Meeting, Europe, Africa, Latin America & Middle East, September 2012, Lisbon, Portugal
  10. Development of Stereotactic Treatment Techniques (Poster) – IPEM meeting 2011