Medical Physics

What is Co-operative Education?
Medical physics co-operative education offers an integrated educational and professional working experience specifically for medical physics graduate students. Each position or “co-op” is a paid position with a local company that provides a different application of knowledge and skills acquired during the medical physics graduate program. These real-world experiences provide our students with additional professional and technical skills that could be applied to clinical residencies, industrial applications, or academia.

How does the Co-op work?
The medical physics co-op is an optional zero credit course (MPHY 300) that can be taken in the second year of graduate study. In many co-ops, students focus entirely on the co-op for 1-2 semesters of their academic study, causing them to graduate late. The medical physics graduate curriculum, however, is scheduled in late afternoons and evenings, so the co-op essentially becomes the student’s “day job” and classes can be taken in their normal sequence at their normal pace. Participating in the co-op will not delay the student’s graduation date.

Who is eligible?
Second year graduate students enrolled in the medical physics program with a cumulative GPA > 3.0.

Are co-op positions paid positions?
Yes. Hourly rates are at the discretion of the co-operative education partner.

Which companies are participating in the Hofstra Medical Physics Co-op?
We exploring partnerships all over the New York City metro and Long Island regions. We will update our website as our program grows! Our current partners include:

Carter, DeLuca, and Farrell:

RadFormation:

Petrone Associates:

If you are a student looking for additional information about the Medical Physics Co-op Program, contact:
Peter K. Taylor, MS MEd DABR
ptaylor3[at]northwell.edu

If you are a company interested in partnering with Hofstra Medical Physics, contact:
Adam C. Riegel, PhD DABR
Adam.c.riegel[at]hofstra.edu
516-254-6873

Medical Physics, M.S.
Program Requirements: 39 semester hours (credit hours)

Electives
MPHY 290: Research in Medical Physics
MPHY 260: Special Topics in Medical Physics
HADM 200: U.S. Health System
HIT 214: Evidence-Based Patient Care

For more information, see the current Graduate Studies Bulletin.

The Hofstra Medical Physics Program is pleased to offer specialized badges to non-matriculated students who wish to further their education in various aspects of professional medical physics. Badges are a terrific way to develop new skills using an interdisciplinary array of classes or refresh existing knowledge prior to professional certification exams.

University policies and procedures related to badge study can be found here. Students who would like to enroll in a medical physics badge should email a current CV and undergraduate transcript to the program director for consideration of admission. Badges are currently offered in the following areas:

• Radiation Therapy Physics
• Imaging Physics
• Data Management in Clinical Medical Physics
• Medical Imaging Informatics
• Medical Physics Leadership

Please note that some badges are interdisciplinary and contain courses in allied health programs.

• Financial Aid

• Northwell Health

• American Association of Physicists in Medicine, AAPM

• Medical Physics Journal

• Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics

• American Board of Radiology, The ABR

• Health Physics Society, HPS

• Radiological Society of North America, RSNA

• American Society for Radiation Oncology, ASTRO

• Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Educational Programs, CAMPEP

• Hofstra Center for Career Design and Development

• American Board of Radiology

• Canvas

• myhofstra.edu

• Faculty
  • 18 radiation oncologists
  • 17 medical physicists
• Technology
  • Intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
  • Image guided radiation therapy (IGRT)
  • Stereotactic radiosurgery/body radiation therapy (SRS/SBRT)
  • 4-Dimensional simulation is used for simulation of respiratory gating procedures, which allows treatment with a high dose of radiation to cancerous tumors while sparing a larger volume of healthy tissue.
  • Arc radiation therapy is a technique that delivers radiation by rotating the linac gantry (linac head) around the patient in an arc form.  Arc therapy allows the radiation beams to be directed from all possible angles, focusing the dose on the tumor while sparing healthy tissue. 
  • 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) combines multiple treatment fields to deliver precise dose of radiation.
  • Brachytherapy
    • High dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy
    • Radioembolization
    • Coronary brachytherapy
    • Radium-223 (Xofigo®)

• Technology
  • Digital radiography
  • Computed tomography (CT)
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
  • Planar nuclear imaging (Gamma imaging)
  • Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)
  • Positron emission tomography (PET)