Review of the 6. Joint Meeting on Medical Physics Swiss Society of Radiation Biology and Medical Physics (SSRMP), the German (DGMP) and the Austrian (ÖGMP) Society for Medical Physics

By the Congress President, Dr. Stephan Klöck. 

The Swiss Society of Radiation Biology and Medical Physics (SSRMP), the German (DGMP) and the Austrian (ÖGMP) Societies for Medical Physics jointly organized a conference in Medical Physics at the Irchel Campus of the University Zurich between September 07.-09. Chairman of the meeting was Stephan Klöck from the University Hospital of Zurich. After Gmunden (2002), Nuremberg (2005), Berne (2007), Munich (2009) and Vienna (2011) this was the sixth joint meeting and the second one taking place in Switzerland. 771 scientists, students and representatives of companies and institutions attended the meeting: 455 from Germany (59%), 221 from Switzerland (29%), 39 from Austria (5%), 48 from other European countries (6%) and 8 from non-European countries (1%). These numbers mark the biggest pure medical physics meeting ever performed on Swiss ground.

Fig. 1: Felicitas Pauss talking about the Higgs discovery at CERN during the opening ceremonyConventus GmbH In January 2014 the steering committee with its 13 members defined the 24 topics of the conference. Scientists from various countries, including Germany, Switzerland and Austria, submitted a total of 240 abstracts. 70 members of the scientific committee did the reviewing and later the program coordination for each session. The quality of the submissions was considerably high. The number of submissions for some of the topics reached a very high level. For instance; "dosimetry in radiation therapy", "magnetic resonance imaging" and "particle radiation therapy" had to be split into 3 sessions. "Motion management in imaging and radiation therapy", "Treatment planning and dose calculation in radiation therapy", "Dosimetry in radio diagnostics and nuclear medicine" and "Quality assurance for medical radiation applications" was split into two sessions. On the other hand, due to a lack of submissions, six important topics did not get a dedicated session: "Image reconstruction/visualization and ICT in medical physics", "Radio diagnostics and computed tomography", "audiology", "medical optics", "biomedical engineering" and "medical robotics and rapid prototyping".

Fig. 2: Willi Kalender, Glocker Medallist of the year 2014 speaking about dose in CT on its way further down to sub-mSvConventus GmbHThe program was subdivided into up to six parallel tracks containing 26 scientific sessions with 152 short presentations and invited lectures. The number of participants in each session ranged from 20 to 190. The "big" topics with more than one hundred attendees included "High precision and stereotactic radiotherapy" (n=190), "treatment planning and dose calculation" (160), "particle radiation therapy" (140), Adaptive radiation therapy (120), Quality assurance for medical radiation applications (110) and "motion management in imaging and radiation therapy" (110). 102 posters were presented and discussed in 8 sessions followed by more than totally 150 visitors. 21 invited introductory lectures served advanced knowledge for the majority of the topics to enable newcomers in a certain field to follow the state of the art short presentations. These lectures were part of the continuous education program of the conference. Another important part of the conference was the industrial exhibition: 42 companies at 38 booths demonstrated industrial solutions to the community and presented/ discussed their approaches in seven lunch symposia.

17 different prizes were awarded during the meeting: life time achievements, special investigations or projects, best presentations and best posters … and one for the dedicated joint meeting quiz. A detailed description of the awards is published in the Zeitschrift für Medizinische Physik.

Fig. 3: Olli Hauenstein Swiss comedian and entertainer - special guest at the social eveningConventus GmbHThere were also several special elements in the program. One of the scientific highlights was Felicitas Pauss’ (CERN & ETH Zurich) fascinating story about the "Higgs discovery at CERN – the impact of science without borders" (Fig. 1) during the opening ceremony. Large scale research, as at CERN, is highly interdisciplinary and its success is based upon international networks and collaborations as well as important prerequisites for smaller scale research. Willi Kalender (Uni Erlangen-Nuremberg) is the Glocker medalist of the year 2014. He gave an excellent talk about "Patient dose in CT – the downward trend continues". In the Glocker lecture he described various approaches to decrease dose to reach sub-mSv CT examinations and also discussed the benefit for individual patients and the public (Fig. 2).

The "meet the presidents" event on Monday and especially the social evening on Tuesday was the ideal opportunity for catching up with friends and colleagues: more than 160 colleagues met for the dinner in the Albisguetli. Highlight of the evening was Olli Hauenstein, a famous Swiss comedian, serving subtle humor, artistic and musical entertainment (Fig. 3). He created a new term of strange truth: "Medical Sisyphist" derived from "Medical Physicist".

Fig. 4: Zurich by night - returning from the social eveningConventus GmbHWith this meeting a platform for exchange between the three societies and their members was created in order to promote the formation or renewal of interdisciplinary and international connections. Therefore; Symposia were held for young medical physicists, medical physics in developing countries and on other professional issues in international comparison. As was done during the previous two conferences of the DGMP, we organized a short introduction in medical physics and a guided tour through the industrial exhibition for 96 pupils from Zurich. 15 colleagues from universities, hospitals and industry served as guides.

Classical radiation physics with all its aspects was still the dominating subject of the congress. But over the last years medical imaging, especially without ionizing radiation, gained a lot of importance within medical physics. Due to a growing number of hybrid approaches in clinical practice and tendencies in international legislation we can expect that this trend will continue. Personally, I would appreciate more impact from medical engineering and technology disciplines in our community. We should strengthen our efforts in designing joint research projects to find answers and create solutions which are state of the art in all possible aspects. Additionally, medical radiation physicists have a lot of experience in professional issues in a clinical environment which they can share.

Fig. 5: “It’s done” - presidents photo with Uwe Wolff, Stephan Klöck, Jürgen Reichenbach, Wolfgang Enghardt and Peter Manser (Raphaël Moeckli had to leave early)Conventus GmbHIt was really exciting and a great honor and pleasure to organize this joint meeting in medical physics. I could experimentally change some of the organizational aspects and observe how they turned out. One of them: more than 70 speakers agreed on sharing their presentations with their audience. Together with the boards of the involved societies we will find a way to distribute them. The final thing for me to do as congress president is to thank all of you. To thank everyone for travelling to Zurich and joining the meeting, the scientists for submitting and presenting their results and discussing their issues, the sponsors and the industry exhibitors for enabling the meeting on this very professional level, all the supporting and helping institutions encompassing more than 100 persons, and especially the three involved boards (Fig. 5), the scientific committee and Conventus. Special thanks to my family for their support and patience. They all contributed to the spirit of this joint conference that became an extraordinary meeting in Zurich 2014.

For more information (programme, abstract book and photos) please visit: www.medphys-kongress.de  or one of the homepages of the involved societies.

Sending greetings - bis bald, à bientôt, a presto, see you,

Zurich, September 2014,

Stephan Klöck.