Medical Physicist or Biomedical engineer

[rmt]

My daughter is 15 years old and soon to be 10th grader. She's considering what career field to go into. So far she's been looking at Pharmacist, Medical Physicist and Biomedical Engineer. She doesn't care for the memorization in Biology, thought that Honors Chem was okay, will be doing AP Chem next year and AP Physics in 11th (I suspect that she'll like Physics as she's more of a problem solver).

Pharmacist
Pros:
Flexible, pharmacies at almost every street corner (so would be able to stay close to family in Miami), would be able to continue working (part time) if she took time off to have kids in the future. University of Florida's pharmacy program has rotations (internships) built in. Pretty good starting pay but not much room for advancement (this is not so important to her - she's quite laid back and content as long as she can do her own thing).

Cons:
A lot of new pharmacy schools are opening up - looks like there'll be a flood of pharmacists by the time she would graduate with a PharmD (about 2020).

Medical Physicist
Pros:
Probably more suited to her - she's more of a math/physics type than Bio/Chem. More suited to a hospital setting/less people than the zillion and one customers in a retail pharmacy. Pays more than a pharmacist.

Cons:
Seem like jobs are far and few in between (especially without experience). She'll be under the 2014 CAMPEP rules, but UF is an accredited CAMPEP school (with accredited residency). Probably will not be able to work locally in Miami (at least not soon after school).

Biomedical Engineer
Pros:
Future seems bright for them - forecasting lots of jobs.

Cons:
Those jobs won't be in Miami (not a hotbed of science/engineering). Pay is significantly less than other 2.

I was reading an old post on Medical Physics and found it interesting in post #244 by qball2:

"Another reason we are so vocal is that many students are drawn into medical physics without a good handle on what it actually consists of. Furthermore, medical physics programs mislead students into thinking physics is the best preparation for their work when in reality biomedical engineering graduates are better trained for medical physics graduate school. Maybe they haven't learned the Schrödinger equation, but they don't need it.

Finally, we are vocal because we believe there is in fact an oversupply of medical physics graduates and that programs and bodies such as the AAPM falsely perpetuate the notion that there is a shortage of medical physicists."

University of Florida has done away with their Medical Physics bachelor of science and is transitioning all those students into their new Biomedical Engineering program. UF's website suggests physics or appropriate engineering background as preparation for their graduate Medical Physics program. I've emailed them whether physics or biomedical engineering undergrad is better for MP but haven't received any answer.

University of Texas suggests:

B.S., B.A., M.S., or M.A. in Physics
M.S. in Medical Physics, or B.S., B.A., M.S., or M.A. degree in a physical science or engineering discipline with adequate physics preparation.
Please note that many such programs (including some B.S. programs in Medical Physics) do not include sufficient physics in their standard curricula.

A suitable preparation in physics would be completion of upper level (junior, senior and graduate) courses:

Electricity and magnetism
Modern physics and quantum mechanics
Additional upper level courses in classical mechanics, thermodynamics, and atomic and nuclear physics, or their engineering equivalents
Mathematics should include multivariate calculus and ordinary differential equations. Additional study in linear algebra and probability and statistics is desirable.

Anyone care to comment on what the future holds for any or all of these fields?

 

[Choppy]

Your daughter has a long way to go before she needs to put serious thought into these options, but it's good that she's at least interested in exploring them now. As she moves through high school and into undergrad she'll be able to explore her interests in science, math and engineering and as they mature, she'll be in a better option to choose her academic and career path.

If she wants to keep medical physics open as an option, the best preparation is an undergraduate physics degree. A biomedical undergraduate degree is also a possible avenue for getting in, but such programs tend to vary in their content and may not universally be acceptable. Similarly, specific undergraduate "medical physics" programs may not provide adequate preparation for medical physics graduate school. So the best option in my opinion is a regular physics degree.

There are roughly 4000 medical physicists in north america. The projected demand over the coming decade is for roughly 150-200 new medical physicists per year and there is expected to be a shortfall. What this means is that a student who enters this path today is likely to be in demand when she finishes her training. But, because the field is small, she won't necessailiy have a choice of which city she wants to work in.