Which institution will award the degree?

The University of British Columbia

Which other institutions, if any, will contribute to this instructional program, and precisely what will each contribute?

The University of Victoria would like to participate and have a joint program. Their students would take courses at UBC (video link?) and carry out their research in Victoria. The program will be connected to the teaching hospitals in the City of Vancouver. Colleagues who have UBC appointments, and who work in these teaching hospitals, and at the BC Cancer Agency will be key instructors in the program. Facilities for teaching and research are located at the teaching hospitals or in associated clinics/centres (e.g., the BC Cancer Agency.

Medical physicists from Victoria or other areas outside the Vancouver area could teach courses in this program, with the help of a video link at UBC or the BC Cancer Agency.

Which department(s), faculty(ies) or school(s) will be offering the degree?

The degree will be offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy within the Faculty of Science.

What is the name, title and phone number of the institutional contact person if more information or clarification is required?

Professor Tom Tiedje,

Professor and Head, Physics and Astronomy

822- 3150

tiedje@physics.ubc.ca

What will be the program title and the name of the credential to be awarded to graduates?

Master of Science (Medical Physics), Doctor of Philosophy (Medical Physics)

The Master of Science degree program will be offered as a research masters degree or as a course work masters degree with an 8 month coop work term.

Graduates of the MSc program will be prepared for the academic component of the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine (CCPM) exam. The CCPM is the professional certification body for Medical Physicists in Canada.

In what way does this degree program contribute to the mandate and strategic plan of this institution?

UBC is committed to using its leading-edge research capacity to insure that graduates are prepared to meet labour market demands in the high technology sector. Our graduate programs contribute to the creation of advanced knowledge through various state-of-the-art research initiatives. The rapid expansion of new imaging systems (e.g., Computed Tomography [CT], Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI], Digital Radiography, ultrasound, positron emission tomography [PET], and single photon emission tomography [SPECT]) has revolutionised the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. Recent developments in cancer treatment, using high technology radiation devices, are especially important. Our researchers have made important contributions here and we need to use their expertise in training medical physics practitioners and researchers.

What is the intended schedule for implementation of the degree program?

We would like to admit the first cohort of students, at the MSc level, in the fall of 2000.

What economic/industrial/social/cultural goals is this program intended to serve?

• There has been an unprecedented growth in the number of radiotherapy facilities in BC in the last few years. Physicists are essential at those facilities and over 36 have been recruited at BCCA in the last 5 years. There is an extreme shortage of experienced medical physicists and hence most of the recruits have been new graduate trainees.

• There are presently 3 vacancies at the Vancouver and Surrey facilities and at least 3 more positions will be available in 2000 when the Vancouver island Cancer Centre doubles in size.

• The anticipated need in radiotherapy in BC is such that an additional radiotherapy machine must be added every year for the foreseeable future. This translates into at least one physicist position every year.

• Advance research capabilities in the province so that we have researchers and practitioners aware of, or contributing to, the latest, most advanced techniques. This is especially the case if we are to be prepared, provincially, for the significant advances in this field that are likely to occur in the next few years.

How do these relate to identified market niches or societal needs?

• These forms of treatment are important to the BC health care system. The BC Cancer Agency alone hires several medical physicists with graduate degrees every year.

• There is a world-wide shortage of medical physicists trained in magnetic resonance imaging, especially functional MRI, as well as in radiotherapy physics. Currently the Physics and Astronomy department is unable to meet student demand for graduate positions in medical physics.

What are the anticipated employment destinations for graduates?

Graduates of the program will find employment opportunities in BC clinics and hospitals. As hospitals purchase more advanced equipment for diagnosis and treatment, medical physicists will be required to supervise the use of this equipment. Most medical physicists work in hospitals and hospital based research establishments, some work in government and industry, and a few are university faculty.

Many graduates of the MSc program will continue on to the PhD program in Medical Physics. The PhD degree is required for jobs that involve independent research.

The course-only coop MSc program will lead directly to employment on graduation, although with suitably good performance these students will be able to transfer to the PhD program.

What potential does this program provide for research and development or job creation?

In bringing together the skills of medical researchers with physicists, we will be creating a program with strong research and development potential. In both the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Science we have some of Canada’s leading researchers. This program will foster research collaborations between the two Faculties.

The potential for start-up companies in medical technology is high.

What is the expected normal time required for program completion? (in years or semesters)

20 months for the research MSc program, 16-20 months for the course-only non-research MSc (coop program), 36- 48 months after the MSc for the PhD program.

The coop program will consist of a 4 month academic term starting in September, followed by an 8 month coop work term, then a final 4 month academic term in the following fall. The student could elect to do an additional academic term in the spring. This would allow time for completion of the coop masters report and allow the student to attend courses that are only offered in the spring term.

What specialities, majors, or minors will be offered?

Research MSc and PhD degrees in Medical Physics. This program will focus on medical imaging and radiotherapy physics.

A course-only coop MSc degree in Medical Physics. At the end of the coop work term the student may elect to switch to the research masters program in which case the course requirements would be reduced from 24 credits to 18 credits (not counting the coop work term) and the student would need to produce a masters thesis.

What programs exist at other B.C. institutions which contain similar content or have similar objectives, and, if similar, what is the rationale for duplication?

Although students at various physics departments throughout the Western Canada region have done research in medical physics leading to MSc and PhD degrees, there are no formal Medical Physics programs in BC or in Western Canada.

How does this program relate to other programs offered at this institution? (shared or related expertise, other resources, etc.)

This program will draw on strengths in medicine and science, and particularly physics. Students will have access to research and teaching labs at the UBC teaching hospitals, as well as labs on the UBC campus. Researchers from Physics and Astronomy, and in the Faculty of Medicine, will play leading roles in the program. Adjunct professors from the Vancouver Hospital and the BC Cancer Agency will play an important role in this program.

What, if any, other programs will be reduced or eliminated in order to initiate the new program?

None

Who are the intended students?

Academically strong students who have successfully completed undergraduate degrees in Physics, Biophysics, or Engineering Physics.

What is the evidence that these students are not presently served reasonably within existing B.C. offerings?

There are no programs in Medical Physics, at the undergraduate or graduate level, in Western Canada.

What enrolments are anticipated?

We anticipate enrolling 10 to 12 new students each year.

How many of these are expected to represent a new client group (to be additional [new] enrolments ) for this institution?

All of the enrolment will be additional to current enrolments.

In general, what resources, existing and/or new, will be required for this program?

We have an informal medical physics graduate program now which graduates 3 – 5 students per year, funded such as it is, by soft money from the Physics and Astronomy department. The instructors in the existing informal graduate program are unpaid volunteers from BC Cancer Agency. The medical physics undergraduate courses, which some graduate students also take, are taught by a combination of unpaid volunteers, part time sessional lecturers seconded from the Vancouver Hospital, and two UBC medical faculty, one with a partial appointment in the Physics and Astronomy Department.

While the local medical physicists have agreed to accept a larger teaching role in an expanded program it is unrealistic and possibly unacceptable to their home institutions to do this on a volunteer basis.

The current program consists of two (each 3 credits) undergraduate courses and 4 graduate courses (three 3 credit one 2 credit), taught by adjunct and associate members

of the Department. The new graduate program involves six 3 credit graduate courses, only four of which will be offered in any given year. One half of one of these six courses will be taught by Alex MacKay, the only instructor with a paid appointment (partial) in the Physics and Astronomy department. The cost of offering these 11 course credits at sessional lecturer rates of $3300/credit, with 17% benefits makes $42,120. There will also be additional overhead expenses associated with running an expanded program which we estimate at approximately $10,000 (graduate secretary, admissions, additional committee work, marking coop reports, supplies, charges for time on research equipment). The medical physics students would also take upper level undergraduate and graduate physics courses.

A Medical Physics faculty position at UBC at the Associate or Full Professor level is required to support this program. This person could have a cross-appointment between a local medical research unit and the Physics and Astronomy Department at UBC. This person would act as the academic co-ordinator of the medical physics program and would also participate in undergraduate and graduate instruction and in supervision of undergraduate theses and graduate theses in medical physics. This could be an externally funded chair position in medical imaging for example. Input from the local medical physics community will be solicited as to the preferred area of medical physics expertise for this position.

There will be start-up costs associated with equipping a lab for a new Medical Physicist. This program will benefit from the $8M Canada Foundation for Innovation centre in Medical and Biological Functional Imaging, recently approved by the CFI. A lab is not required if the position is a radiotherapy physicist as all the modern state of the art equipment is available in the Cancer Centres.

The research degree students would pay the standard faculty of science graduate student tuition ($2,279). In the terminology of the report of April 26, 1999 of the Committee on Tuition Policy, the Coop masters program is a post baccalaureate program analogous to LLB, MD and DMD and therefore should have the same tuition. Taking the highest tuition for these programs (MD) the tuition for the coop program would be $3,937/yr with a coop fee of $452 for the two work terms. The Physics and Astronomy Coop program office has agreed in principle to take responsibility for coop work placements. Hospitals, government agencies, pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers are potential coop employers.