Present Status of Medical Radiological Physics in Bulgaria

Medical Physics has long traditions in Bulgaria. The new stage of the development of this specialty started with the harmonization of Bulgarian legislation with the requirements of the International Basic Safety Standards for protection against ionizing radiation and the EURATOM Directive 97/43, which require qualified expert in medical physics to be involved in all the activities with ionizing radiation. The legal requirements for medical physics expert's involvement in medicine were introduced in 2005 with the Ordinance for Radiation Protection of Individuals at Medical Exposure, which gave qualification requirements for medical physicist and for medical physics expert. The first qualification level "Medical Physicist" is a physicist who passed a formal course of lectures, seminars, tutorial work and practical work of not less than 300-400 hours. This level is equivalent to the Master of Science degree in Medical Physics obtained from an accredited academic course. MSc degree in Medical Physics can be obtained from three Universities in Bulgaria. The second level "Specialist in Medical Radiological Physics" is a medical physicist with at least three years in-service training, who is upgrading his/her theoretical knowledge and is performing independently individual practical work. This level can be obtained within the the well established postgraduate training system. The third qualification level is the "Expert in Medical Physics". The Ordinance defines the Medical Physics Expert in one of the three fields Radiotherapy, Nuclear Medicine or Diagnostic Radiology as a Medical Physicist with a postgraduate speciality Medical Radiological Physics, with a minimum of five years experience in radiation protection and quality assurance in the relevant field of Radiology and with higher qualification assessed on the base of a credit system and exam.