The first student was enrolled on our Medical Physics MSc programme in September 1968, making this the 50th anniversary of the programme. To celebrate this we will be hosting an event on the 2nd of November, which is open to all former staff and students from the Biomedical Physics suite of MSc programmes: Medical Physics, Medical Imaging, Medical Physics Computing, Biomedical Engineering and Information Technology (Medical Physics).
Over those 50 years Aberdeen has remained at the forefront of developments in the field of Medical Physics. Our expertise in MRI is well known; from the development of the first clinically useful MRI system in the 1980s through to the world’s first whole-body fast field cycling system, which started scanning its first patients earlier this year. However, we also have a strong track record of pioneering developments in other areas of Medical Physics. For example, in Nuclear Medicine, we developed one of the first tomographic radioisotope scanners (the wonderfully named Aberdeen Section Scanner – ASS) in the 1980s, carried out the world’s first HMPAO SPECT scan (now a widely used brain imaging technique) in 1990 and were early pioneers in the field of Positron Emission Tomography.
Our leading work in the field was recognised when the University of Aberdeen received the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2000 for “Its pre-eminence in medical imaging technology for over 30 years”
Education has always been at the heart of our mission and over those 50 years our suite of Medical Physics MSC programmes have helped to train the next generation of clinical scientists. We have worked closely with our colleagues in the health service to ensure that our programmes remain relevant to the needs of the sector and our courses are taught by experts working in the NHS and by researchers with a global reputation for excellence. Many of our Alumni are now in senior positions in hospitals, universities or major companies around the world and we are looking forward to celebrating their achievements in November.
