qball2
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NeoDevin said:Or perhaps, one side takes offense to being called "willfully ignorant" about medical physics, despite being active members of the medical physics community.
How do you define "research done in physics". If you define away each sub-discipline and applied branch of physics, there wouldn't be anything left.
That's their fault. Some of us actually bothered to look into our graduate program and the resulting career prospects before applying. My graduate program told me up front that many of the jobs are QA positions, and that research positions are more competitive.
Physics is the best preparation for medical physics, for the simple fact that most medical physics programs are structured based on the assumption that students are coming from an underground physics background. In my courses, we covered all the BME needed, while glossing over much of the physics. They could certainly redesign the courses so that they don't cover the BME in as much depth, and instead go over basic physics. The fact remains that: Given the way medical physics courses are currently structured, physics is the best preparation. You keep insisting (without supporting your claim) that no physics whatsoever is required for medical physics.
Oh, wow. One example of one topic covered in undergrad physics that doesn't see much use in medical physics. You sure proved your case that no physics is required. Never mind that anyone doing Monte Carlo radiation transport calculations for their research is indirectly using the Schrödinger equation. Just because you don't refer to it during every calculation, doesn't mean that it's unimportant to know. In order to know which approximations are valid (and there are always some approximations that have to be made), it's important to know where the various parameters come from, and how they are derived.
I didn't say you were willfully ignorant about medical physics, only about the issues. Your knowledge of the subject is irrelevant.
Anyone doing Monte Carlo calculation is using EGSnrc and plugging in numbers. Are they writing the code? No. You do not need to know physics to perform Monte Carlo calculations any more than you need to know 3D animation to enjoy "The Matrix"
And I'm telling you, from personal experience, that medical physics classes are not structured around physics. Have you even taken medical physics courses? What evidence is there? Well, every example you and Choppy give of things that you do can be done without physics. Every single one. I defy you to come up with an example of something done in medical physics that only training in physics can provide.