Nuclear Medicine is the use of small amounts of radioactive compounds to diagnose and treat various disorders in humans. It measures, or "traces", the radioactive compounds as they move around the body, often using specialised imaging equipment. Most of the studies and treatments assess the physiological activity of the body non-invasively, making them very attractive and sensitive to use, such that now they are an essential component of an advanced health care system.
Nuclear Medicine Physicists are essential members of the multidisciplinary clinical teams involved in the provision of health care for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. They, often along with specialised radiochemists, provide the scientific basis for the nuclear medicine procedures that are used in patients. They are experts in the interaction of radiation in the body and work closely with the specialist physicians and technologists in delivering treatment plans for individual patients.
Nuclear Medicine Physicists are highly qualified professionals with extensive training in mathematics, radiation physics, and biological systems. They have responsibilities in the clinical environment for ensuring that all radioactive materials and equipment are accurately and safely used by the clinicians. They are often called upon to problem-solve unusual clinical presentations or results, and to develop new techniques for assessing organ function and uncovering abnormal processes.
The Nuclear Medicine Physicist oversees equipment operation, radiation safety and protection of staff, patients and carers, teaching and training of junior scientists and medical staff, advanced IT and computing applications, troubleshooting of artefacts or abnormal appearances in scans, and verifying the results of clinical studies where measurements involving radiation are used.
Nuclear Medicine Physicists often spend a significant amount of time involved in problem-solving activities, but creativity in solving the problems or devising new imaging tests and analyses is also a requirement. Being immersed in a highly specialised clinical environment usually requires the nuclear medicine physicist to become familiar with the clinical basis of many diseases and disorders so as to be able to contribute to the multidisciplinary team managing the patients.
Nuclear Medicine Physicists may be involved with the applications of physics associated in the following broad areas:
The Nuclear Medicine Physicist is usually the person within the multidisciplinary team that has the most complete understanding of the science involved in the measurements or imaging of the patients. While the clinicians may recognise abnormal patterns due to disease, the physicist is the one who is expected to understand the complete diagnostic or therapeutic chain from the radioactive compound used through to the imaging or measurement instrumentation involved, any computer analysis and interpretation of results, and would be expected to recognise any divergence from normal operations. New clinical applications will typically involve optimising and refining methodology for data collection and analysis and these functions will usually be implemented by the Nuclear Medicine Physicist.
Nuclear Medicine Physicists are responsible for ensuring the correct operation of all equipment used in nuclear medicine facilities from the dose calibrators which measure the amount of radioactivity in a vial or patient injection, through to the accurate calibration of the imaging scanners, and on to the software programs that are used to extract information from the images to provide the clinical results. They will often be called upon to troubleshoot any apparent malfunctioning equipment due to their in-depth knowledge of the technology in these sophisticated devices. They may be called upon to provide an opinion as to whether scanning on a particular imaging system may proceed or not due to the magnitude or nature of the problem.
Nuclear Medicine is heavily reliant on the IT environment and the sophisticated algorithms used to perform functions such as three-dimensional image reconstruction, modelling of kinetic physiological systems, determining rates of change over time in the “uptake” of the radioactive compound in various tissues, and organs and predicting cell kill and tissue damage from the radiation delivered to abnormalities such as cancerous deposits or to normal tissues which may also take up the therapeutic compound. Nuclear medicine physicists will typically be able to use one or more programming languages to develop new analytical techniques on the specialised workstations provided with the imaging equipment.
Radiation in the form of x-rays (Radiology) and gamma rays (Nuclear Medicine) are used to probe the body due to their highly penetrating nature. Nuclear medicine introduces the source of the radiation into the body, whilst x-rays emanate from an Xray tube directed towards the patient with an image of the radiation captured as it passes through the body and emerges on the other side. Radiation is also used to treat cancer and some other conditions. The nuclear medicine physicist is responsible for ensuring the safe use of radiation in both diagnostic imaging and therapeutic settings. Increasingly, the Nuclear Medicine Physicist is involved in the prescribing of individual treatments for patients to achieve the best clinical outcome, balancing the toxic dose from the radiation delivered to the abnormal tissue with the protection of nearby “bystander” tissues and organs. Similarly, the patients and their carers and the staff who work constantly in the environment need to do so in a safe way and the Nuclear Medicine Physicist oversees all aspects of this radiation protection.
As scientists, Nuclear Medicine Physicists generally approach a clinical problem based on the way they have been trained - that is, to develop a method to solve the problem and then to test it with an open mind and refining as necessary. Due to this, and due to the heavy science basis of nuclear medicine involving mathematics, radiation physics, biology and physiology, instrumentation and solving inverse problems, the Nuclear Medicine Physicist is often involved in research programs and teaching of a broad range of individuals from nurses on the hospital ward concerned about the radioactive patient, to the radiographers and technologists involved in performing the scans and other measurements on the patients, and the medical specialists and other clinical colleagues involved in the management of patients. Many of the suggestions for new techniques and improved analyses often come from scientists and clinicians outside of the immediate Nuclear Medicine Department and the Nuclear Medicine Physicist is often called upon to devise methods to implement the suggestions aimed at improving the clinical outcomes for the patients.