Program Format
The certificate program may be completed over the course of one or two years.
Course Descriptions
This comprehensive course is designed to describe the structure and function of the human body through an integrated survey of anatomy, physiology, and histopathology. This information will provide a framework for understanding clinical aspects of medical physics. The anatomy sections of this course will include its regions, viscera (organs), tissues, and spatial orientation, as well as a three-dimensional appreciation of the human body through imaging-based anatomy every organ system or region in the body covered. The physiology sections of the course will provide students with a profound understanding of human physiology from cellular to systemic levels, with the ability to articulate and comprehend the core principles of physiological concepts within major human systems. Students will also be introduced to human histology, including the principal tissue types (epithelia, connective tissue, blood vessels, muscle, neural tissue) and their organization into organs as well as basic pathologic concepts, including major non-neoplastic and neoplastic disease processes. The course content will be delivered through a combination of in-person lectures and, for a majority of the physiology content, self-paced, asynchronous, interactive modules available through Canvas. Team-based active learning sessions will provide an opportunity for students to consolidate and apply the knowledge gained from both lectures and learning modules.
Prerequisite: permission of the program director
Instructors: Ashley Morhardt, PhD, Dionne Lai Kuan, PhD, Ian Hagemann, MD, PhD
Credits: 3 credit hours
This class is designed to construct a theoretical foundation for ionizing radiation dose calculations and measurements in a medical context, and to prepare graduate students for proper scientific presentations in the field of x-ray imaging and radiation therapy. This course will cover the fundamental concepts of radiation physics, how ionizing radiation interacts with matter and how the energy that is deposited in the matter can be measured in theory and practice. Specifically, a student completing this course will be able to do the following:
1. Understand and apply key concepts specific to energy deposition for both ionizing photon interactions and transport in matter, and for energetic charged particle interactions and transport in matter. Radiation sources include radioactivity, x-ray tubes, linear accelerators, and particle accelerators.
2. Understand the theoretical details of ion-chamber based dosimetry and of cavity-theories based clinical dose measurement protocols.
3. Understand the working principles of reference and relative dosimeters, and their associated practical considerations.
4. Perform and present real world style research projects as a group and present these projects in a typical professional scientific format and style.
5. Achieve an appreciation of the history and potential future developments in ionizing radiation detection and dosimetry.
Prerequisite: Physics and calculus; permission of the program director
Instructor: Arash Darafsheh, PhD
Credits: 3 credit hours
This class is designed to establish a foundation for ionizing radiation interaction with biological tissues. This course will cover the fundamental concepts of cell biology, how ionizing radiation interacts with cells, radiation damage and carcinogenesis, radiation therapy fractionation and related concepts. The effects of ionizing radiations on living cells and organisms, including physical, chemical, and physiological bases of radiation cytotoxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenesis are also covered.
Prerequisite: permission of the program director
Instructor: Buck Rogers PhD
Credits: 2 credit hours
This course is designed to build on the concepts of radiation dosimetry techniques and bring them into the clinical therapy realm. The students will learn clinical applications of radiation dosimetry, as well as fundamentals of treatment devices, treatment planning, dose measurements as used in radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer or other conditions. External beam radiation therapy, treatment planning processes, treatment approaches and dose calculation algorithms, stereotactic radiation therapy, brachytherapy, protons and charged particle therapy, therapeutic imaging approaches, including treatment verification imaging and image-guided radiation therapy, quality assurance, and motion management, will all be focused elements of the course.
Prerequisite: MP5010 or permission of the program director
Instructor: Michael B. Altman, PhD
Credits: 3 credit hours
This course is designed to further the concepts of radiation interactions and dosimetry to radiation protection and safety. Biological effects of radiation exposure in humans, protection and safety of the radiation worker and patient, as well as detection equipment will be the main focus. The fundamentals of shielding design of x-ray facilities will be discussed. This course will briefly cover regulations and radiological protection in various clinical environments.
Prerequisite: Physics and calculus; permission of the program director
Instructor: Ziad Saleh, PhD
Credits: 2 credit hours
The objective of this course is to reinforce and enhance the understanding concepts developed in didactic medical physics courses through practica, laboratory work, and/or special lectures. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the physics and methods involved in clinical imaging and/or radiation therapy treatment processes. The various practica will cover an array of topic areas including absolute dosimetry, relative dose measurements, patient QA, imaging QA, radiation beam modeling, treatment planning, proton therapy, brachytherapy, stereotactic radiotherapy, and adaptive radiation therapy.
Prerequisite: MP5010, MP5070 and MP5080; permission of the program director
Instructor: Taeho Kim, PhD
Credits: 2 credit hours
This class will develop a fundamental understanding of the physics and mathematical methods that underlie biological imaging and critically examine case studies of seminal biological imaging technology literature. The physics sections will examine how electromagnetic and acoustic waves interact with tissues and cells, how waves can be used to image the biological structure and function, image formation methods and diffraction limited imaging. The math sections will examine image formation and analysis using basis functions (e.g. Fourier transforms), synthesis of measurement data, reduction of multi-dimensional imaging datasets, and statistical image analysis. Original literature on electron, confocal and two photon microscopy, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, computed tomography, functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging and other emerging imaging technology will be critiqued.
Prerequisite: Physics and calculus
Instructor: Joseph O’Sullivan PhD
Credits: 3 credit hours
Orientation
The program will provide a half day facility orientation to the students admitted to the program. The orientation will include HIPAA training and clinical safety.