Medical physics education and training in South East Asia

Abstract

The Association of South- East Asian Nations (ASEAN) established in 1967 comprises 10 countries located in South East Asia. Eight countries with Medical Physicists are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam where Cambodia and Laos have no medical physicists. The South East Asian Federation of Organizations in Medical Physics (SEAFOMP) was setup in 2000 with 5 ASEAN members and 2 members joined in 2002 and 2005. Due to the limited number of medical physicists, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia have not been members of SEAFOMP. The medical physics education and training as Master of Science program in Medical Physics was started at Thailand in 1972, followed by Philippines in 1981, Malaysia in 1994, and Indonesia in 1998. Vietnam established M.Sc. in Bio- Medical Engineering in 2003. Currently, thirteen universities in South-East Asia provide medical physics education and training at different levels. The survey of the status of medical physics in South East Asia was performed at 6 countries for the level and the period of education and training, the clinical training, the total number of medical physicists, the Certification and the Accreditation. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.