SOURCE: http://www.iomp.org/?q=content/e-medical-physics-world-issues-issn-2313-4712   We are approaching to the middle of the year 2017; a year which is already marked by interesting and exciting events for the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP). February and March were busy months for the Organization. In early February, there was a busy one week consultancy meeting at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in which IOMP was represented by the Secretary General and the President. The objective of the meeting was to continue on the drafting of the IAEA Safety Report on Radiation Protection in Dental Radiology as well as the development of related training material. The team of invited experts included representatives of the World Dental Federation (FDI), the International Association of Dento-Maxillofacial Radiology (IADMFR) and the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging (the Image Gently Alliance). The European Conference of Radiology, 1-5 March 2017 in Vienna, was an important scientific event that IOMP took part again this year. Thanks to Prof Magdalena Stoeva who did all the necessary arrangements, the IOMP booth was present in a prominent place within the scientific societies’ section. This enabled not only the promotion of IOMP, but also the networking with other scientific societies of the world. During ECR, the SG represented IOMP in a leadership meeting with the International Society of Radiology (ISR) which resulted in a closer collaboration. This included joint celebrations of International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP) and International Day of Radiology (IDR), joint statements in future conferences, joint sessions in congresses and events, etc. Just after ECR, IOMP took part in the IAEA Technical Meeting on Preventing Unintended and Accidental Medical Exposures in Radiology held at the IAEA’s Headquarters in Vienna, Austria, from 6 to 8 March 2017 (https://rpop.iaea.org/RPOP/RPoP/Con tent/News/2017-3-tm-radiology.htm). The meeting gave Member States, international organizations and professional societies an opportunity to exchange information on methods for investigation, reporting and prevention of unintended and accidental exposure in diagnostic radiology and interventional procedures. The meeting was attended by 52 participants from 25 countries including radiologists, medical physicists, radiation technologists, and regulators as well as equipment manufacturers. It was attended by representatives from WHO, UNSCEAR, ISR, ISRRT, Image Gently Alliance, DITTA, HERCA, CRCPD, ESR, EFOMP, EFRS, as well as a range of national organizations and regulatory authorities. Although still early in the year 2017, a number of applications for various scientific events and/or conferences around the globe have already been processed. The request from national or regional organizations was either for endorsement or/and financial support. Examples are the endorsement of events in countries such as Bangladesh (http://pmcn2017.info/), South Africa (http://www.saapmb2017.co.za/) and India (http://aocmp-ampicon2017.org). IOMP is proud to announce the formalization of a cooperation between the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) through the exchange of letters for the evaluation of the usage of radiation in medicine. There were a number of requests from National Member Organizations (NMOs) to update the latest IOMP survey related to the number of medical physicists (MP) and specifically on the percentages of men and women MP. The results of the IOMP initial survey can be found in the European Journal of Medical Physics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25790723 . For this reason, the survey is currently being updated at the following link: https://goo.gl/forms/8ofpGsRg6UtS7ltH3 Finally, IOMP is continuously trying to update all NMOs information you are kindly asked to update your information at the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc6aOY5O5vNxq08yD9ynfJE_k6dHY51nO2Xs2XZdP

Abstract Nigeria is situated on the West Coast of the African Continent with a population of about 150 Million  and  Abuja  at  the  centre  which  also  serves  as  its  Federal  Capital.  The  historica levolution of medical physics as a profession and the current state of affairs together with the daunting challenges  staring the professionals  are discussed in  this  paper.  The role of  theVienna-based  International  Atomic  Energy  Agency  (IAEA)  in  the  establishment  of  clinical training programmes and in tackling the obstacles militating against the recognition of the profession in the continent of Africa and elsewhere in the world is appreciated as well as the recent interest shown by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) to partnerwith the Nigerian Association of Medical Physicists (NAMP) to give it a lift. The German Medical Physics Association (DGMP) is hereby requested to also partner with NAMP to take it to the next level of its developmental strides. 1. Introduction In recent years, various reports have cited the increase of cancer incidence in Africa. This increase  could  be  attributed  to  factors  such  as  lack  of  resources,  infrastructures,socioeconomic status,  cultural  and political  situations.  According to  GLOBOCAN 2008,  the cancer incidence with exclusion of non-melanoma skin cancer for Nigerian males and femaleswas 95.1/100,000 and 128.4/100,000 respectively, with 75.4/100,000 as the death rate from cancer for both sexes. The number of new cases was estimated to be 40.1/1 00,000 for males and 61.7/100,000 for females, with prostate, liver, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, colorectum and leukemia cancers cataloged as the five most frequent cancers for Nigerian males and for their Nigerian females counterparts are the breast, cervix uteri, liver, colorectum and non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancers. It  is anticipated that by 2020, the cancer incidence in the country could rise to 54.8/100.000 for males and 83.5/100.000 for females. The emergence of medical physics in Nigeria has a symbiotic relationship with the advent of Radiotherapy service in the country perhaps because of the greater risks and consequence that can result from the unwholesome application of this treatment modality and this dates back to the mid seventies (1974-75) when the first cobalt-60 machine was commissioned for patient treatment at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in Lagos, South-West Nigeria. Some  few  professionals  initiated  the  formation  of  the  Nigerian  Association  of  MedicalPhysicists (NAMP) in the early eighties and with great enthusiasm conducted a number of sensitization  activities  towards  bringing  the  importance  of  this  field  of  study  to  national consciousness. However this effort came to a decline in the late nineties. The activation of the Nigeria  Nuclear  Regulatory  Authority  (NNRA)  in  2001  appeared  to  bring  to  forefront  the importance of medical physics in the country especially in the health establishment as well as the  radiation  protection  regime  in  the  industrial  sector  with  particular  emphasis  on  the petroleum industry where a substantial amount of radioactive materials are in use. The preponderance of physicists are stationed in the hospital radiotherapy departments and universities. In Nigeria, radiotherapy seems to fare better than nuclear medicine in terms of facilities/equipments  and  personnel,  however  there  are  hundreds  of  diagnostic  radiology establishments  with  thousands of  x-ray facilities  with  minimal  or  no  radiation  safety  and protection officers so designated. There are presently over  fifty universities, more than twenty inadequate running teaching hospitals and nine radiotherapy centres in the country, one is owned by a private entity while the  remaining  eight  are  established  by  the  Federal  Government  of  Nigeria.  The facilities amongst these nine centres include: five linear accelerators, three Co-60 treatment machines, two high dose rate (Co-60 and Ir-l92) and three low-doserate (Cs-137) brachytherapy machines, four CT -SIMS and two conventional simulators as well as six treatment planning systems out of which two are now obsolete and not fùnctional. The centres are located at: The Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) Zaria,Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Gombe, Usman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH)Sokoto, The National Hospital, Abuja (NHA), The University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH)Benin-City, The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu, The University CollegeHospital  (UCH)  Ibadan,  The  Lagos  University  Teaching  Hospital  (LUTH)  Lagos  and  EKOHospitals Lagos (a private outfit) in the South-Western part of Nigeria. The Departments of Nuclear Medicine exist at the National Hospital, Abuja and the University College Hospital in Ibadan. Some nuclear medicine facilities are also available at the Radiation Biology  and  Radiotherapy  department  of  LUTH-Lagos,  and  at  the  department  of  Internal Medicine of UNTH-Enugu. Two of these centres have a gamma camera each; one single-head(Siemens E-Cam) in Ibadan and a dual-head Hungarian-made Mediso (Nucline Spirit  DH-V:Dual-Head Spect and Whole Body Digital Gamma Camera) camera in Abuja. The other two centres only have in their possession some few Geiger counters for Radioimmunoassay (RIA) studies. 2. Personnel There are about forty  Medical Physicists in Nigeria and less than half of this number can be said to be properly qualified. Also, less than half of these numbers are practicing in a health establishment. Most of the physicists who are in the hospitals could only be found in the Radiotherapy and Oncology departments  with  only  two in  the diagnostic  radiology and a similar number in the nuclear medicine departments. About  twenty  trainees  are  currently  at  different  stages  towards  the  completion  of  their postgraduate degrees (M.Sc.) in Medical Physics at the six University departments of Phhysics,where the academie curriculum of  medical  physics  are  run without  clinical  or  on  the job training components. With the activation of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NNRA), a critical mass of between fifty and one hundred medical physicists shall be needed in our hospitals especially as  radiation  protection  officers  and  quality  control/assurance  enforcers  in  the  diagnostic radiology departments which are very numerous in the country. Of immediate and particular importance are the University Teaching Hospitals (17 Federal and 6 State), the Federal MedicalCentres (22 ofthem), the Specialist Hospitals (3 and 3 Orthopedie and 8 Neuro-Psychiatrie -making a total of 14) and the few thousands private health establishments, which all have diagnostic facilities as part of the armamentarium of equipments in their possession. In terms of future needs with respect to

The congress will be followed by a 3-day workshop (28th to 30th September 2017) organised in collaboration with the American Association of Physicists in Medicine International Science Exchange Programme (AAPM-ISEP). The workshop will be conducted by 6 international experts in the field of Radiation Therapy Physics and will focus on specialised techniques and advances in Radiation Therapy. The AAPM faculty will also present at the congress. These events are endorsed by the Federation of African Medical Physics Organisations (FAMPO), the International Organisation of Medical Physics (IOMP) and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). Important Dates Abstract submission has been extended till 19 June Notification of acceptance/decline will the 3rd of July Early Bird registration from 3 April-14 June Late registration applies from the 15th June Registration closes 6th September Exhibition registration extended to 30 June 2017 Exhibition cancellation by 31 July 2017 SAAPMB 2017 Gala Dinner is on the 27th of September AAPM-ISEP 2017 Gala Dinner is on the 29th of September SOURCE: http://www.saapmb2017.co.za/