Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine

The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM) is the United Kingdom's professional body and learned society for physicists, engineers and technologists within the field of medicine, founded in 1995, changing its name from the Institution of Physics and Engineering in Medicine and Biology (IPEMB) in 1997. The Institute is governed by an elected Board of Trustees reporting to which are the Science, Research and Innovation Council and the Professional and Standards Council. The councils have operational responsibility for scientific and professional aspects of the Institute's work, respectively. Beneath the councils is a substructure of committees, groups and panels of members, which undertake the work of the Institute.
The Institute is licensed by the Engineering Council to register Chartered Engineers, Incorporated Engineers and Engineering Technologists and by the Science Council to register Chartered Scientists, Registered Scientists and Registered Science Technicians.
The aim of the Institute and its members, set out in its charitable objects and articles of association, is to promote for the public benefit the advancement of physics and engineering applied to medicine and biology, and to advance public education in the field.
History.
The organization can trace its origin to three societies:
The HPA created its scientific arm in 1984, the Institute of Physical Sciences in Medicine (IPSM). The trade union and scientific activities split in 1989: the scientific arm merged with the BES to form IPEMB while the trade union (HPA) joined the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Trades Union (MSF).
The Association of Medical Technologists (AMT), formerly HPTA, merged with IPEM in 2001.
Membership.
There are several categories of membership:
Equality, diversity and inclusion.
The Institute is a signatory of the Engineering Diversity Concordat of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Science Council Diversity Declaration and has its own Equality Policy.
Annual Conference and Woolmer Lecture.
The Institute holds an annual conference on Medical Physics and Engineering. During this conference the flagship lecture of the Institute, the Woolmer Lecture, is presented. The lecture is dedicated to Professor Ronald Woolmer who was the first Director of the Research Department of Anaesthetics at the Royal College of Surgeons. Woolmer convened a meeting at the Royal College of Surgeons, London, to discuss the evolving field of engineering applied to medicine. It was agreed that the group should hold regular meetings and as a result the Biological Engineering Society (BES) was formed with Ronald Woolmer as the first President. Woolmer died two years after the formation of the BES and it was agreed that a memorial lecture would be sponsored in recognition of his achievements.<br>
The following table includes a list of the lectures since 2002:<br>
Publications.
IPEM owns three international peer-reviewed journals:
PMB and Physiological Measurement are published in association with IOP Publishing while Medical Engineering and Physics is published by Elsevier.
<br>
The Institute also publishes:
President of IPEM.
The IPEM president serves for two years and takes office at the Annual Conference. The following table includes a list of all past presidents of IPEMB/IPEM.