European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) policy statement 12.1: Recommendations on medical...

In 2010, EFOMP issued Policy Statement No. 12: "The present status of Medical Physics Education and Training in Europe. New perspectives and EFOMP recommendations" to be applied to education and training in Medical Physics within the context of the developments in the European Higher Education Area arising from the Bologna Declaration and with a view to facilitate the free movement of Medical Physics professionals within Europe. Concurrently, new recommendations regarding qualifications frameworks were published by the European Parliament and Council which introduced new terminology and a new qualifications framework - the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) for lifelong learning. In addition, a new European directive involving the medical use of ionizing radiations and set to replace previous directives in this area was in the process of development. This has now been realized as Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom of 5 December 2013 which has repealed directive 97/43/Euratom. In this regard, a new document was developed in the context of the EC financed project "European Guidelines on the Medical Physics Expert" and published as RP174. Among other items, these guidelines refer to the mission statement, key activities, qualification framework and curricula for the specialty areas of Medical Physics relating to radiological devices and protection from ionizing radiation. These developments have made necessary an update of PS12; this policy statement provides the necessary update.