Physics in Medicine

Physics in Medicine – Creating a New Generation of Practicing Physicians and Medical Researchers

The “Physics in Medicine” (PIM) program is a multi- and trans-disciplinary R&D effort
focused on fulfilling critical needs in medical education and research. Developed and
directed by Dr. Ed Szuszczewicz, it is supported by the Claude Moore Charitable
Foundation, with the results of its initial effort published online in Proceedings “Physics
in Medicine and Medical Education”. The
underpinnings of the program are threefold:

(1) That physics is the most mature and most fundamental of all physical
sciences. And the first-order connection of the laws of physics to living organisms, to
clinical medicine, and to medical research is compelling

(2) Expert panels repeatedly point out that practicing physicians, medical researchers and cancer
biologists need to appreciate the power of physics to advance their knowledge of first-order cause-effect
relationships involving the diseases and maladies they study, diagnose and treat; and

(3) The same expert panels also report that medical education has stagnated and has not kept pace with
the basic sciences or the emerging and frontier technologies in the diagnosis and management of disease.

In a series of Forum events and workshops in a
multi-year effort tailored to specific needs in the
hierarchy of medical training, practice and
research the program:

A) Focused on Physics as the foundational science
of all life sciences in developing essential transdisciplinary and integrative approaches to medical
curricula across the continuum from pre-med
through continuing medical education;

B) Educated the medical and physics teaching and
research communities the important needs-for and applications-of a first-principles cause-effect understanding of
life science processes while getting doctors to think like physicists and physicists to think like doctors;

C) Involved a team-based “buddy system” of researchers, teachers and practitioners in Physics and in Medicine
who envision for themselves a scholarly, trans-disciplinary and collaborative role in developing important
innovations to medical education while they advance their own practice and research discipline. This “buddy
system” was specifically designed to develop and launch collaborative scientific and educational research efforts
expected to result in previously unforeseen multi-and trans-disciplinary advances in medicine – a goal at the core
of the PIM program; and

D) Developed the guiding principles, motivational forces, intellectual resources and foundational learning modules
for a new generation of medical care and research that promises innovations with more effective and expedient
diagnoses, treatments and cures of everything from cardiovascular and neurological diseases to cancer.