Abstract
Despite its crucial role in the development of new medical imaging technologies, in
clinical practice, physics has primarily been involved in technical evaluation of
technologies. However, this narrow role is no longer adequate. New trajectories in
medicine call for a stronger role for physics in the clinic. The movement towards
evidence-based, quantitative, and value-based medicine requires physicists to play
a more integral role in delivering innovative precision care through the intentional
clinical application of physical sciences. There are three aspects of this clinical
role: technology assessment based on metrics as they relate to expected clinical performance,
optimized use of technologies for patient-centered clinical outcomes, and retrospective
analysis of imaging operations to ensure attainment of expectations in terms of quality
and variability. These tasks fuel the drive towards high-quality, consistent practice
of medical imaging that is patient-centered, evidence-based, and safe. While this
particular article focuses on imaging, this trajectory and paradigm is equally applicable
to the multitudes of the applications of physics in medicine.
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Article info
Footnotes
☆Reproduced with permission. J Am Coll Radiol 2018;15:1008–1012. Copyright © 2018 American College of Radiology.
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© 2019 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica.
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- On the original article by Ehsan Samei and Thomas Grist “Why physics in medicine” firstly published on the Journal of American College of Radiology (2018)Physica Medica: European Journal of Medical PhysicsVol. 64
- Preview“Radiology and physics have always had a symbiotic relationship”: this is Samei and Grist’s article incipit [1], and most people in the field would agree with that. There is also a general agreement on the fact that modern1 medical physics started its development after the discoveries of X-rays and natural radioactivity by the end of the XIXth century, the very same events that started a new medical discipline, presently named radiology.
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