WCM-Q pre-medical students visit HMC to learn about medical physics

DOHA: Pre medical students from Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar (WCM Q) learned about the growing importance of medical physics in diagnosis, treatment a...

DOHA: Pre-medical students from Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) learned about the growing importance of medical physics in diagnosis, treatment and patient care during a field trip to Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC).

Sixty students in the second year of the pre-medical programme visited HMC to discover how rapid advances in technology are making a sound understanding of physics more crucial than ever for the modern physician.

Supervised by Dr. Mohammad Yousef, professor of physics at WCM-Q, the students visited HMC’s state-of-the-art National Centre for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR), one of the region’s most advanced cancer hospitals. They were welcomed by the centre’s highly trained doctors and medical physics specialists who explained how new technologies, including AI, are making the diagnosis and treatment of cancer far more effective.

Dr. Yousef said, “Medical physics has often been considered a niche field in the past but the emergence of new technologies and their application in almost all fields of medicine mean that the modern physician must have a good understanding of the concepts and language of physics in order to fully realise the potential of these advances for their patients.”

The students saw first-hand how cancer specialists work in large care teams alongside radiation oncologists and other imaging specialists, using the latest generation of medical imaging technology to identify the location of tumors in human tissue with very high levels of accuracy.