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Graduate Program


Students and faculty of the Duke Medical Physics Graduate Program in the program classroom, Dec 2005.

Table of Contents

1. Admissions
 2. Degree Requirements

1. Admissions

Deadline and Procedures

Duke University Graduate School Admissions:
this external link will take you to the online application site.

Students must indicate in their applications whether they are applying for the Master of Science (M.S.) or Ph.D. programs, because while many core courses are similar, other requirements may vary between the two courses of study. Once matriculated, a student who wishes to switch from the M.S. to Ph.D. program must formally apply to be admitted to the Ph.D. program; decisions on such admissions are made by the Dean of the Graduate School.

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Pre-requisites for entering the program

(1) B.S. in Physics
      OR
(2) Bachelor's degree in natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering with the following recommended college-level coursework:

Students may be accepted with some deficiencies. Classes taken to overcome deficiencies, in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), will be in addition to the standard Medical Physics curriculum.

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Financial Aid

We anticipate most PhD students being supported by fellowships during their first year; subsequent years of fellowship support will be provided by the grant funding of a student's advisor.

Partial scholarship support will be available for some Masters students. Please contact the Director of Graduate Studies for details.

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2. Degree Requirements

Program features

Important note: This curriculum is applicable only to entering class of 2006. The curriculum is subject to change for the subsequent academic years.

  1. The Program consists of 4 training levels:
  2. The M.S. and Ph.D. programs have 4 tracks:
  3. The curriculum consists of
  4. Each student will take a track-specific clinical practicum. The practicum will permit hands-on training using equipment involved in the practice of medical physics, and should be beneficial for students who plan on either a research or clinical career.
  5. Each student elects a major track, a minor track (for PhD), and should take 1 course in frontier areas that are currently not a part of traditional Medical Physics discipline (e.g., genomics, data mining, bioinformatics, biophotonics).
  6. Students are required to choose their track at the end of the first year of their program.
  7. The program encourages MS students to arrange for summer practical clinical/research experiences. These are optional, but would enable the student to become acquainted with professional aspects of medical physics. There may be some help from the program in identifying suitable summer practical experiences.
  8. There will be an optional mock board exam at the middle of the second year to prepare students for board exams.

Curriculum structure

curriculum

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Minimum requirements for M.S.

Total of ~9 courses + 1 practicum + 4 seminars + 6 thesis/electives (40 credit hours). Typical duration is 2 yrs.

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Minimum requirements for Ph.D.

Total of ~11 courses + 1 practicum + 4 seminars (~40 credit hours). Typical duration is 2 years of course work plus 2-3 years of research.

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Lists of courses

The following are all PDF files:

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