First Science Leadership Day a great success
03/10/2023
A SCIENCE Leadership Day held by IPEM explored what the future of medical physics and clinical engineering will look like and what everyone can do to prepare for the future.
More than 60 volunteers attended the event in York to build on the themes identified in the Science Leadership Strategy (SLS) to gain an insight into what IPEM can do to help support members for the challenges ahead.
The highly interactive event saw participants work through a series of scenarios on the three grand challenges and three emerging trends identified in the Science Leadership Strategy around clinical safety and security, climate change and the environment, and workforce and skills.
Deliver on detail
Professor Andrew Reilly, IPEM’s Vice President for Scotland and former Director of the Science, Technology and Engineering Research and Innovation Council (STERIC), said the aim of the day was to look ahead to the next 30/40 years.
He said it was important to members and volunteers to take ownership of the SLS, deliver on the detail of it, address current challenges and engage IPEM’s membership.
Groups worked on the grand challenges and emerging trends themselves, with facilitators from SAMI Consulting, experts in futures thinking and strategic foresight, lending a helping hand to help shape the outcomes.
Series of interventions
Each group came up with a number of interventions for each grand challenge and these were presented to the rest of the audience in the second half of the day.
Ideas included IPEM training courses aimed at delivering better climate outcomes, more crossover with academia and industry to address clinical safety and security, and collaboration with stakeholders to ensure new roles have recognition and a diversity of routes open to people.
The day concluded with Dr Anna Barnes, IPEM’s new President, and Dr Mohammad Al-Amri, Director of STERIC, giving their thoughts on what would come from the event.
Dr Barnes said: ‘We need to harness the talent and energy of our members to bring these ideas to reality to help members deliver how they want IPEM to be.
‘We as members need to embody that change to become a larger, stronger more influential organisation.’
Dr Al-Amri said his takeaway from the day was the need to develop research and innovation within IPEM by identifying key topics.
The day ended with a celebration to mark the 60th anniversary of the International Organization for Medical Physics (IOMP), with a talk by its former President and IPEM Fellow Professor Slavik Tabakov on how the organisation has grown over the years.
