Essential role of a medical physicist in the radiology department

The medical physicist plays a number of essential roles in the radiology department. These roles can be examined under the tripartite mission of a radiology department: patient care, teaching, and research. Under patient care, the role of a medical physicist involves quality and safety activities, which include performing acceptance testing, conducting periodic evaluation of imaging modalities for regulatory and accreditation compliance, and providing patient dose estimations. Regulation and accreditation requirements that paved the way for the medical physicist’s role are discussed. As for teaching, medical physicists are typically involved in teaching radiology residents and radiation technologists and also providing in-service education to staff and others. A number of emerging roles are propelling the medical physicist to be the “go-to person” with regard to not only regulatory compliance but also the safety and quality of imaging.