AMPA is happy to announce that AMPA student members Kailyn Stenhouse (PhD program) and Jacob Groeneveld (MSc program), both from the medical physics graduate program at the University of Calgary, have been selected as the winners of the 2022 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Stenhouse was successful with her application covering two abstracts titled "Results of a Prospective Applicator and Hybrid Interstitial Needle Selection Machine Learning Model for High-Dose-Rate Cervical Brachytherapy" and "Comparison of Bayesian Networks and Conventional Machine Learning Techniques for Cystitis Prediction in Cervical Cancer Patients​", which were presented at the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP) Annual Scientific Meeting 2022. 

Mr. Groeneveld was successful with his application titled "Monte-Carlo simulation of electron beam collimation using parallel magnetic fields​" which was also presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2022. 
 
This year AMPA again received numerous excellent applications. Their high quality made selecting the winners a difficult task, yet evidences the remarkable work undertaken by our AMPA student members. The AMPA directors congratulate all student applicants, and especially our 2022 winners.

AMPA is pleased to announce that AMPA student members Lingyue Sun (PhD program), Rebecca Frederick (PhD program) and Joseph Madamesila (MSc program), from medical physics graduate program at the University of Calgary, have been selected as the winners of the 2021 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Sun was successful with her application titled "Predictive Factors of Biochemical Failure Free Survival for Prostate Cancer Patients after External Beam Radiation Therapy" and "Using machine learning algorithms to predict biochemical failure after external beam radiotherapy" which were presented at COMP Annual Meeting 2021. 

Ms. Frederick was successful with her application titled "Characterizing Six Degrees of Freedom Treatment Couch Deflections During Extended Field Treatments" which was presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2021. 

Mr. Madamesila was successful with his application titled "Characterizing Changes in Apparent Diffusion Coefficients of Brain Metastasis Before and After Stereotactic Radiosurgery" which was presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2021. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members. The AMPA directors congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2021 winners.

AMPA is pleased to announce that Braden Chow of the University of Alberta Medical Physics program has been selected as the winner of the 2020 AMPA Student Travel Award. 

Mr. Chow was successful with his application titled "In vitro determination of radiobiological parameter values used in cervical cancer brachytherapy​" which he presented at the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology & Oncology (ESTRO) Congress 2020 virtually on November 30, 2020

AMPA is also pleased to announce that Dr. Matt Larocque of the University of Alberta Medical Physics department has been selected as the winner of the 2020 AMPA Physicist Award. 

Dr. Larocque was successful with his application to present on "Conformal Ocular Brachytherapy in Alberta" at the 2020 WESCAN Medical Physics Conference in Victoria, BC on March 14, 2020.
 
AMPA congratulates the winners of this year's awards; the quality of these presentations reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA physicists and student members.

​AMPA is pleased to announce that Ray Yang of the University of Alberta and Amy Frederick of the University of Calgary medical physics programs have been selected as the winners of the 2019 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Mr Yang was successful with his application titled "Deterministic MRIgRT Patient Dose Calculation Using Bulk-Density Assigned CT AND A Spectral Analysis of a Linear Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin Scheme for the Linear Boltzmann Transport Equation with Magnetic Field AND Developing a Source Model for the Elekta Unity MR-Linac Using a Grid-Based Boltzmann Solver" which will be presented at AAPM Annual Meeting 2019 in San Antonio, TX. 

Ms. Frederick was successful with her application for titled "Dosimetric Impact of Set-up Errors and Anatomy Changes in CBCT-Guided Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation: Towards Evidence-Based Set-up Margins AND The Pursuit of Paperless: a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis of the Transition to Paperless Medical Physics Quality Assurance for Linear Accelerators" which will be presented at the COMP Annual Scientific Meeting 2019 in Kelowna, BC. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members.  On behalf of AMPA, I would like to congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2019 winners.

​As many of you know, WesCan was rebooted in 2019 (http://wescan.org/). The Cross Cancer Institute hosted the event in late March, which was a great success in bringing together physicists across Canada. To support WesCan in 2019 and in the future, the AMPA Directors created the WesCan Physicist Award to encourage Alberta physicists in taking an active role in the future of WesCan. For 2019, the award was given to Dr. Jonatan Snir, who gave a presentation on Power Doppler ultrasound for improved intraoperative needle tip visualization during prostate brachytherapy. As we move towards WesCan 2020 in Victoria, BC, the AMPA Directors are happy to continue supporting this initiative

​AMPA is pleased to announce that Clara Fallone of the University of Alberta and Svetlana Kuznetsova  of the University of Calgary medical physics programs have been selected as the winners of the 2018 AMPA Student Travel Awards. 

Ms. Fallone was successful with her application titled "Assessing the Glycerol Proton Contamination on Fat Unsaturation Quantification Using Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy at 3 T" which was given an oral presentation at AAPM Annual Meeting 2018 in Nashville, TN. 

Ms. Kuznetsova was successful with her application for titled "Performance Comparison Between Three Different Image Fusion Methods For The Registration Of Liver Region In Planning CT And Post Radiation Therapy PrimovistTM Enhanced MRI" which was given an oral presentation at CARO-COMP-CAMRT joint ASM in Montreal QC, September 12-15, 2018. 
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members.  On behalf of AMPA, I would like to congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2018 winners.

​After the elections 2017 Annual General Meeting, AMPA is pleased to welcome Dr. Keith Wachowicz (Vice-President) and Mr. Ian Nygren (Treasurer) as part of the AMPA directorship. AMPA would also like to thank Drs. Joel St. Aubin and Charlie Kirkby for their years of service to AMPA as they transition out of their Presidential and Past-Presidential roles, respectively. Dr. Charlie Kirkby will remain tied to AMPA as he is a continuing liaison to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta during the Medical Physics professional regulation process.

​AMPA is pleased to announce that Sarah Weppler of the University of Calgary medical physics program has been selected as the winner of the 2017 AMPA Student Travel Award based on her abstract titled, “Framework for the quantitative assessment of clinical adaptive radiation therapy protocols”. Ms. Weppler will be presenting at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine Annual Scientific Meeting, to be held July 30 – August 3, 2017 in Denver, CO.
 
Once again, AMPA received several excellent applications, the quality of which reflects very well on the work being produced by our AMPA student members.  On behalf of AMPA, I would like to congratulate all of the student applicants as well as our 2017 winner.

This fall, continued progress was made towards regulating the profession of Medical Physics.  Below, you'll find summaries of two important meetings which were attending by our current AMPA president, Dr. Joel St. Aubin.

Meeting with Health Professions Unit – September 16, 2016
 
Dr. Joel St-Aubin – President AMPA
Dr. Dave Kinniburgh – President AACLDS
Mr. Andrew Douglas – Director, Health Professions Unit
Mr. Shawn Knight – Executive Director, Human Health Resources & Strategy Branch
 
The purpose of this meeting was to get an update from the government as to the status of the regulated profession application submitted jointly from AMPA and AACLDS, and to meet the new Director of the Health Professions Unit, Andrew Douglas. The government had recently finished opening the Health Professions Act (HPA) to include physician assistants as a regulated profession within the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). The Health Professions Unit is hoping to re-open the HPA again in the fall of 2017 to make some other changes to the act. Shawn Knight and Andrew Douglas identified the purpose of opening the HPA was specifically to make revisions to the act itself. They also identified this time as the perfect opportunity for professions such as Medical Physics (MP) and Clinical Laboratory Doctoral Scientists (CLDS) to be added to the HPA. Despite the fact that both Shawn Knight and Andrew Douglas admitted that a fall 2017 timeline was ambitious, they both believed that AMPA and AACLDS should work towards being prepared for this timeline. During this meeting, both Andrew and Shawn provided their belief that MP and CLDS inclusion into the HPA, which requires approval from the Legislature, would not be an issue as we are both science based professions.  However, before they begin any work on our application, they were clear that an official endorsement from the CSPA was required to ensure MPs and CLDSs have the administrative support for regulation. Overall, this meeting was very positive and both Shawn and Andrew were very supportive of our application.
 

​Meeting with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta – November 1, 2016
 
Dr. Joel St-Aubin – President AMPA
Dr. Dave Kinniburgh – President AACLDS
Dr. Trevor Theman – Registrar CPSA
Dr. Susan Ulan –Assistant Registrar, Registrations CPSA
 
Based on the discussion from the Health Professions Unit, the presidents of AMPA and AACLDS scheduled a meeting with the Registrar and Assistant Registrar in charge of registrations with the CPSA. The main focus of this meeting was to discuss the timelines and requirements for the CPSA to provide the health professions unit with an official letter of support for MP and CLDS regulation, and their desire to be the governing college our these professions. Drs. Theman and Ulan were both very supportive of the AMPA and AACLDS joint application for regulation, and promised that the official letter of endorsement from the CPSA to the health professions unit would be tabled in the next CPSA council meeting in December 2016. Dr. Theman had mentioned that he thought there would be no issues in providing an official endorsement after the council meeting. Due to the short timelines (proposed opening of the HPA in fall of 2017), it was recommended that AMPA and AACLDS move forward on certain preparations. AMPA, AACLDS and the CPSA agreed to meet again early in the new year to review progress towards the regulation of MP and CLDS. Three specific tasks were identified as essential, and are to be completed by this meeting in early 2017. Namely,

1. Identification of protected titles (schedule 21, section (1) of the HPA);
2. Development (or definition?) of  practice statements for MP and CLDS (in accordance with what is done in schedule 21, section (3) of the HPA);
3. A full registry of all qualified medical physicists and clinical laboratory doctoral scientists working in Alberta.

In addition to these two requirements for the addition of MP and CLDS into the HPA, the CPSA also recommended that AMPA and AACLDS begin work on details regarding the regulations including:

1. Specifying restricted activities;
2. Describing a registrations process;
   1. Initial membership: All CLDSs currently working in an accredited facility, and all qualified MPs will be eligible for HPA regulation, as a one-time opportunity when the professions are regulated.
   2. Standard route: What education, training and credentials will be recognized.
   3. Substantial equivalency: A process for evaluating individuals who do not have the standard education, training or credentials, but possess other credentials that may be deemed to be substantially equivalent to the outlined standards.
3. Continuing competence and professional development;
4. Professional conduct;
   1. Complaint process.

The suggestion was for AMPA and AACLDS to review the current CPSA regulations, along with their code of ethics and standards of practice and mark changes / alterations that would be required to include the MP and CLDS into the existing regulation framework. The meeting with representatives of the CPSA was very encouraging. 

AMPA members are invited to attend the 2016 Annual General Meeting taking place on Friday, November 18th from noon - 1:30 pm.   Remote access meeting connections will be available in the following locations:

Calgary, TBCC - CC121
Lethbridge, JACC - Dr. Kirkby's Office
Red Deer, CACC - WCL1064
Edmonton, CCI - 0421

Lunch will be provided.
​
We look forward to seeing you there!