A technological innovations for the diagnosis and management of cancer is here to stay in the foreseeable future. In our enthusiasm to quickly embrace new technology on offer, are we somewhere ignoring to fortify our found at- ions? For instance, have we give sufficient thought to our current status of educational infrastructure, our process of certification of manpower, our workplace practices and operating procedures and implementation of quality assurance protocols?Are we accelerating our learning curve too rapidly?

Have we taken a moment off to reflect on our current state of preparedness?

While the enthusiasts amongst us may brush off these issues as trivial, and the skeptic resign themselves to fate, may we ask the intelligentsia of our community to take stock of the situation and deliberate on these very pressing and relevant issues.

In this context, the theme we propose for deliberation is ‘Technological Innovations: Meeting the Challenge’ – and invite you to participate in symposia, debates and presentations focusing on Indian context. We propose to invite from amongst us the think-tank from abroad and India to deliberate on this vital issue, if we are to make any sustainable headway in the health care for our teeming millions. The conference is therefore aimed at medical physicists, clinicians, scientists, biomedical engineers and technologists – specializing in therapy, imaging, radiation safety and research and development of equipment.

We welcome you to Lucknow, a city with much historic flavor, which was one of the epicenters of the uprising of 1857, which blends the old with the new, representing both modern and historic India, chaotic and yet endearing! The weather in Lucknow during middle of November will be cool and pleasant with winter setting in.

We hope to make your stay comfortable and look forward seeing you in our midst and contribute towards the scientific deliberations.

The proposed topics include:

• Health care scenario and infrastructure in India- with a focus on radiation therapy, nuclear medicine and diagnostic radiology.
• Clinical medical physicists: Basic training infrastructure and their accreditation.
• Medical physics residency programs: Need, relevance and infrastructure in India and job avenues.
• Training issues of radiation technologists.
• Work place QA practices: Do we have models to emulate within the country? (e.g.: The ESTRO experience).
• Regulations and accreditations: Need and reality.
• Radio-isotopes: New isotopes, applications and functional imaging
• Imaging sciences: Innovations and interrogating tissue ultra-structure & dosimetry.
• Radiotherapy: Immobilization, Mould room practices and relevance in the era of image guidance?
• Motion Management: The science, for whom and how effective is it?
• Treatment planning algorithms and computational models and networking
• Dosimetric challenges in the radiation sciences
• Brachytherapy: New innovations and image based applications.
• The promise of particle therapy.
• Radiobiology: Modeling dose in-homogeneity.