Historical Background
McGill University
McGill University, founded in 1821, is one of the oldest universities
in Canada. The University owes its existence to James McGill, a Montreal
fur trader, merchant and civic leader, who died in 1813, bequeathing his
46-acre farmland "Burnside Place" and £10,000 for the founding
of McGill College and the Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning.
Classes began in 1829, when an existing medical college became the Faculty
of Medicine of McGill University. The Faculty of Arts opened its doors in
1843 and over the next decade the University also added modern languages,
commercial studies and the sciences. From 1855 onward, under the 38-year
principalship of renowned geologist Sir William Dawson, the University began
to achieve national and international prominence. Enrollment climbed from
about 100 to 1000 and the University admitted its first female students
in 1884. Shortly after the turn of the century philanthropist Sir William
Macdonald endowed a college at Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, some 40 kilometers
west of downtown Montreal, which is today the site of the Faculty of Agricultural
and Environmental Sciences (Macdonald College).
Faculty of Medicine
The Faculty of Medicine was established in 1829 as the first faculty
of McGill University. It dates its origin to 1823 when four staff members
of the recently opened Montreal General Hospital founded the Montreal Medical
Institution in order to offer lectures to students of medicine. In 1833,
four years after the institution became the Faculty of Medicine, William
Leslie Logie was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery and
became the first McGill and the first Canadian medical graduate. In 1862
the degree was changed to its present designation, Doctor of Medicine and
Master of Surgery and in 1872 it was conferred upon the faculty's most illustrious
graduate, William Osler. Osler served on the faculty from 1874 to 1884 before
going on to the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University and
Oxford University. He was instrumental in developing the Medical Library,
which had its origin in the Montreal Medical Institution and which now contains
over 216,000 volumes and 2,300 periodicals, and left to it his extensive
collection of books devoted to the history of medicine.
Department of Physics
The McGill Department of Physics has it roots in the relatively modest
Department of Natural Philosophy which, in the 19th century, was one of
the McGill science departments. Toward the end of the 19th century, the
growing importance of physics in the world of science was being recognized
by a considerable increase in financial support from the McGill administration
and by a name change from the Department of Natural Philosophy to Physics.
In 1890, W.C. Macdonald, a tobacco manufacturer and one of the most generous
McGill benefactors, offered funds for the erection of a Physics building
and endowment necessary for a chair in experimental physics. The chair was
filled by John Cox, who in 1896, following Roentgen's discovery of x rays,
published the first Canadian report on the use of the "new photography"
in connection with a clinical case at the Montreal General Hospital.
While Professor Cox's work in imaging qualifies him as the first Canadian medical
physicist, even more important developments came out of the Macdonald Physics
building soon thereafter. In 1898, Rutherford was appointed professor of
physics at McGill and, immediately upon arrival, he embarked on experiments
to determine the nature of radioactivity. His work in collaboration with
Soddy, who was associated with the McGill Chemistry department, subsequently
led to the "Rutherford's model of the atom" and other important
scientific developments which affected not only the development of modern
physics in general, and medical physics in particular, but also profoundly
influenced the history of mankind.
With its steady growth until the 1970s, the department had become
one of the major physics departments in North America with solid majors
and honors programs in undergraduate physics, and a well respected graduate
program, both in theoretical and experimental physics. In 1976, the department
moved from the Macdonald building into a
new building which bears the name "Rutherford Physics building"
in honor of the most illustrious physicist ever on staff at McGill University.
At September 2009, the physics department had 70 faculty and associate members,
41 postdoctoral fellows and research scientists, and an enrollment of 138 graduate students.
Medical Physics Unit
The Medical Physics Unit (MPU) was founded in 1979 as an academic
unit in the Faculty of Medicine, with the primary objective to offer a graduate
program leading to an M.Sc. degree in medical physics. The first director
of the MPU was Montague Cohen, who was instrumental in establishing the
graduate program in medical physics at McGill. During his 12 years as director
of the MPU, Dr. Cohen succeeded in building the M.Sc. program in medical
physics into a strong and reputable program which is well known and respected
worldwide.
In September 1991, Dr. Cohen was succeeded as director of the
MPU by Dr. Ervin B. Podgorsak, who held the position until December 2008. Under
the directorship of Dr. Podgorsak, the total number of students to have graduated
from McGill University with an M.Sc. degree in medical physics grew by 130 to 168 and
by 20 to a total of 24 with a Ph.D. degree in medical physics.
Since January 2009,
the position of director of the MPU has been held by Dr. Jan Seuntjens, and an
additional 8 M.Sc. and 3 Ph.D. degrees have been added to the total number for
students having graduated from McGill with degrees in medical physics since 1980.
A complete listing of the 176 M.Sc. and 27 Ph.D. graduates with their project or
thesis titles and current employment can be found here.
In 1979, six medical physicists with principal appointments in Radiation
Oncology or Neurology-Neurosurgery departments at McGill received secondary
appointments in the MPU. During the past 29 years, the number of MPU members
grew to the current staff list of 20 (18 staff members plus 3 associate members).
M.Sc. Program in Medical Physics. The M.Sc. program in medical
physics started as an applied program with students
taking courses during the first three semesters of their study and working on a
medical physics project during the fourth semester. No thesis was required and
the degree conferred upon completion of course work and the project was labelled
as M.Sc.(A) in medical physics, with (A) designating the applied nature of the
program. In 1987, the medical physics program was reorganized into a pure M.Sc.
program which gives equal weight to the academic and practical knowledge of
medical physics (first year) and research training (second year). The course
work (28 credits) is given in the first two semesters of the M.Sc. studies and
a research thesis (32 credits) is required as a condition for graduation.
Of the 176 M.Sc. graduates, 60 are from Québec, 57 from
the rest of Canada, 8 from the U.S., and 51 from other countries. Among
the group of 176 M.Sc. graduates, a total of 151 currently hold positions
in medical physics at various institutions around the world and 15 are
continuing their studies toward a Ph.D. degree at McGill (5) or
elsewhere. Of the 60 M.Sc. graduates originating from Québec, 32 are working as
medical physicists in Quebec, 11 in the U.S., and 7 in the rest
of Canada. Ten of the 57 M.Sc. graduates from the rest of Canada are
currently working as medical physicists in Quebec, as are 16 graduates
who originated from outside of North America.
Ph.D. Program in Medical Physics. The small size of the MPU and heavy clinical commitments of its staff allowed
only a relatively small effort toward a Ph.D. program and this in collaboration
with some other related major department at McGill. The Physics department, with
its excellent reputation in undergraduate and graduate physics teaching, is the
best candidate for this collaborative effort. To date, 27 students
have received Ph.D. degrees in medical physics, 23 through the Physics
department, one through an ad-hoc program in the Department of Neurology-Neurosurgery,
one through an ad-hoc program in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and two
through the Department of Electrical Engineering. A listing of the 27 Ph.D.
students and their theses is given here, with the thesis supervisors and
major departments in parentheses. Twenty-six of the 27 Ph.D. graduates are employed in medical
physics positions, 11 in Quebec, 5 in the rest of Canada, 8 in the US, and 2 outside
North America.
Residency Program in Radiation Oncology Physics. McGill started a formal residency-training
program in Radiation Oncology Physics in 1997. Before that time the McGill Medical Physics Department
had no experience with formal medical physics residency training; however,
the department has been involved with M.Sc. and Ph.D. academic programs in Medical
Physics since 1979 and was also running an ad-hoc radiation oncology physics
training program for physicists who started to work in the department with little or no prior
medical physics experience.
Before 1997 four physicists with M.Sc. degrees in physics and nine physicists with Ph.D.
degrees in physics received their introductory medical physics training through regular work experience
in the Medical Physics Department at the Montreal General Hospital. These physicists currently occupy
senior positions in various institutions across Canada and the United States. They did not follow a
formal residency program in Radiation Oncology Physics, yet they successfully progressed at McGill through
the learning stages of Medical Physics, starting with absolutely no clinical physics experience
and following an ad-hoc program developed for them
in the Medical Physics department and tailored to their individual needs as well as the departmental needs.
In 1997 the residency program was formalized through a budgeted residency
training position at the Montreal General Hospital and the residency was
structured into a 2-year program following CAMPEP academic and clinical recommendations.
The residency program has been accredited by CAMPEP since 2000 and to date 15 residents completed the program.
Since 1993 both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. programs in Medical Physics at McGill
University have been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics
Education Programs, Inc. (CAMPEP). The residency program in radiation oncology physics has been accredited since 2000. More details on
the McGill accreditations can be found here