Ghana-Norway collaboration in medical physics and radiography education, strengthened

Kumasi, June 28, GNA - The ‘Fourth Ghana-Norway Summer School in Medical Physics and Radiography Education’, has been held in Kumasi, with a call for the strengthening of partnership amongst academia for the mutual benefit the two countries.

“It is hoped that this partnership would assist to build the human resource needed to push the agenda of sound diagnostic radiology, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy and radiography services,” Professor Mrs Ibok Oduro, Provost of the College of Science - Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), noted.

Such collaboration, she said, was necessary to help provide quality healthcare delivery and also increase the momentum to place medical physics and other allied health services at the frontiers in Ghana.

This year’s ‘Summer School’ on the theme: “Quality 3D Imaging and Applications in Radiotherapy Treatment Delivery”, was funded by the Norwegian Agency for International Cooperation and Quality Enhancement in Higher Education.

It was organized jointly by the Graduate School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences, University of Ghana (UG), Department of Physics, KNUST, which is the host institution, as well as Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The four-day programme was aligned to the Norwegian Partnership Programme for Global Academic Cooperation (NORPART), which seeks to increase mobility of the academic staff and students at the partner institutions.

Prof. Oduro hinted that the NORPART project aimed at establishing partnership for education and research amongst institutions in Ghana and their counterparts from the Scandinavian country, within the fields of medical physics, radiation protection and radiography.

She said KNUST was grateful to play a part in the project, saying it was determined to assist in any way practicable for its success.

Prof. Benjamin J.B. Nyarko, Director-General of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC), said over the past three years of the ‘Summer school’, the feedback from the students and participants from Ghana and Africa had been very positive.

Modern radiation treatment machines, he said, provided a lot of flexibility to tailor the arrangement of radiation beams that deliver to accomplish minimal damages to the surrounding healthy issues.

In order to have good quality and standard procedures, he advocated for a critical cohort of dedicated team of medical physicists, radiotherapists and radiographers, as well as radio protection practitioners in the quality control and safety assessment of radiation emitting devices and equipment.

Prof. Nyarko said this would enable more accurate delivery of radiation doses and ensure the safety of patients, staff and care-givers.

The four-day ‘Summer School’ treated topics ranging from ‘Overview of Radiotherapy in Ghana (Process/Planning and Equipment)’, ‘Radiation Protection in Medical Imaging and Radiotherapy’, ‘Emerging Trends in 3D Imaging’, ‘Nuclear Medicine Imaging and Applications’ to Quality Control and Assurance in Radiotherapy’.

GNA

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