What can I do with a physics degree? Nuclear Medicine Physics

Want to use your physics degree for good? Nuclear Medicine Physicist Daniel McGowan explains how.

What’s your job?

I’m a trainee medical physicist specialising in nuclear medicine at the Churchill Hospital, based in Oxford.

What is a medical physicist?

It’s to do with oncology (cancer) and diagnostic (for example kidney function. These are treated or investigated with a dose of radiation and one aspect of the job is to check that the radiation levels are safe.

When I qualify, I will advise radiographers who do the diagnostic tests or administer injections and will generally be on hand for complex issues.
I will have to ensure that all equipment, such as a pet scanner or a gamma scanner, is working correctly.

How did you get involved in this field?

Safety Goggles

When I did my undergraduate degree at Oxford University, my tutor taught medical physics as an option. That’s how I heard about this field. As part of the course I got to do a tour of the hospitals.

I then applied to the NHS. It’s a competitive application process to get in but seeing the hospital definitely helped.

You can apply for four different locations, stating the order of priority. I landed my first choice in Oxford.

What are the career prospects and salary like?

Salaries start quite low, around £23,000. But your pay goes up at the end of each year and you get a jump when you qualify.

When you qualify your pay goes up each year too.

How could I get into this field?

You need to have done a degree in Physics and then be accepted onto a four-year training programme.

The first two years are part 1 and will include a post-graduate masters course (either full or part-time).

What’s the best bit about your job?

Knowing that I am using Physics for good. In my role I am helping patients. When I was at uni, I did a three-month internship with a defence company. It was interesting but I think my current job is a much more useful way of using my physics knowledge.

Also, I love working for the NHS. You can clearly see the benefit of what you do on the public as a whole.

What’s the worst bit about your job?

The training is quite long from start to finish, especially when you’ve already done a degree.

Also, writing up portfolios can be tough. For part one of the training you have to write three different portfolios of 60-80 pages. Doing this on top of the masters and everything else is pretty hard work.