Annual Meeting of the German Society for Medical Physics 2008 in Oldenburg

"The German Society for Medical Physics is pleased to be coming to Oldenburg for its 39th annual conference. Not only is Oldenburg home to an attractive degree programme in medical physics, but it is also home to relatively new disciplines such as hearing research and medical robotics in addition to "classic" medical radiation physics. The university's lecture theatre centre also offers ideal conditions for our annual conference with its large industrial exhibition," explained the President of the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP), PD Dr Sibylle Ziegler (Munich), with regard to the opening of the conference.

Conference President Prof. Dr. Dr. Birger Kollmeier will welcome around 400 medical physicists from Germany and abroad to Oldenburg on 10 September 2008. "Whenever images are taken in medicine, patients have to be treated with radiation or particularly complex techniques such as laser treatments are used, physics is involved," explained Kollmeier, a physicist and doctor who heads the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Oldenburg. A central element of the conference was therefore the presentation and discussion of new physical-technical research results, such as images of how the brain works or new types of radiation for cancer therapy.

Medical imaging was already a major topic in Oldenburg two weeks before the start of the conference. Prof. Dr Björn Poppe, medical radiation physicist at the University and Pius Hospital, explained "How the invisible becomes visible" in his KinderUni lecture on 27 August 2008 to almost 1,000 eagerly listening children. "In addition to the professional discussion among colleagues, it is particularly important to us to get future students interested in medical physics," emphasised Poppe about the campaign in the run-up to the conference, which also included an exhibition with an MRI simulator and ultrasound machine in the Leffers fashion store's activity area in the city centre. "Due to the low number of first-year physics students, hospitals are already desperately looking for qualified medical physicists," added Kollmeier, who had already emphasised the excellent career prospects for the next generation of physicists with the "Physics in Oldenburg - study in the city of the day after tomorrow" initiative.