News Bites

For those attending the AAPM Spring Clinical Meeting in Las Vegas, several WPSC members will also be in attendance and would love to organize an informal mixer. Please contact WPSC member Jennifer Pursley if you would be interested in such an opportunity. Also, if you're able to stay for the full conference, there are two interesting sessions scheduled for Tuesday on "In the Era of Consolidation: Making Physics Minutes Count" and "Peer Support and Mentorship."

Come join us at the 60th Annual AAPM meeting in Nashville! The WPSC will likely hold its Annual Meeting on Saturday, July 28. All AAPM members are welcome to attend! Please check the committee meeting schedule closer to the meeting date to find the exact time and location for our meeting, or contact the WPSC members for more information. We are always looking for help with our annual women's luncheon planning, outreach programs, professional development work, and newsletter publication.

Please also plan on joining us for the Women's Luncheon at the AAPM Annual Meeting. The luncheon will take place on Tuesday, July 31, and planning is already underway. Again, all members are welcome to attend. When you register for the Annual Meeting you will also have the option to register for the luncheon. This is a great opportunity to take a break, connect and network with many women physicists from different backgrounds, and do all this while enjoying a delicious meal. Every year the luncheon sells out so don't delay in signing up!

If you're on LinkedIn, there's a Women Medical Physicists Group started by WPSC past-chair Nicole Ranger. This is also a great place to make connections with other women medical physicists and share information relevant to careers, work-life balance, or just medical physics!

We also like to highlight great stories or features of women scientists. The 5^th International Day of Medical Physics (IDMP) was November 7, 2017 (the exact date chosen because it's the anniversary of Marie Curie's birth) and the theme was "Medical Physics: Providing a Holistic Approach to Women Patients and Women Staff Safety in Radiation Medicine." One resource we found was these great printable posters of five "Forces of nature: great women who changed science" from the Perimeter Institute. You can download the posters for free. Another resource we learned of is from COMP, the Canadian Organization of Medical Physics, who in honor of IDMP profiled 10 female medical physicists from across Canada. Read through their profiles in the archives, accessible from their website. Many thanks to John Schreiner, PhD, FCCPM, of Queen's University for bringing these profiles to our attention!

Seeking contributors!

The WPSC Newsletter is published biannually in the spring and fall, and we are always on the lookout for news, stories, ideas, and features related to women in medical physics to include in future editions. Contributions and suggestions can be sent directly to the WPSC.