Radiation Physics for Medical Physicists / Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering (PDF)

Ervin B. Podgorsak was born in Vienna, Austria and grew up in Ljubljana, Slovenia where he completed his undergraduate studies in technical physics at the University of Ljubljana in 1968. He then studied at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, USA and obtained M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics. He completed his post-doctoral studies in medical physics at the University of Toronto in 1974 and moved to McGill University in Montreal, where he currently holds positions of Professor of Medical Physics and Director of the Medical Physics department.

"This is a textbook by a distinguished physicist and educator that is intended for students in a graduate-level course covering the fundamentals of medical physics. The author states that the book’s intent is to provide the "missing link" between elementary physics and the physics of the specialty of medical physics. The book meets this intent very well….

"Any instructor teaching an introductory graduate-level course on the principles of medical physics should consider this book for adoption as a text. The book does not cover applications of the principles to topics such as dosimetry, quality and safety, or applications to radiology, nuclear medicine, or radiation oncology. What it does cover is the principles themselves, and it covers them very well." (Medical Physics, January 2006)

"Although intended as a textbook for radiation physics course incorporated in graduate medical physics degree programs, this book will be a delight and ready-reference also to seasoned practitioners. Besides the inclusion of a listing and elaborations of the significant milestones in radiation and medical physics from 1985 and Röntgen’s X rays up through Hounsfield and Cormack’s Computerized Tomography (CT) in 1971 and beyond, the book is packed with all the concepts, formulas and physical constants any radiation physics doctoral student would love to have wired into his or her brain, to sail through the most formidable examination with flying colors… This textbook, based on notes the author ‘developed over the past 25 years of teaching radiation physics to MSc and PhD students in medical physics at McGill University’ is a real gem for the bookshelf of anyone already professional working in the radiation sciences, as well as for a comprehensive teaching text aptly suitable for a graduate-level course within the medical radiation physics curriculum.’ (John H. Hubbell, Radiation Physics and Chemistry)