Introduction:
Prof Sung Sil Chu was one of the founders of the Korean Society of Medical Physics (KSMP) and has served four terms as the President of KSMP since 1990. During his leadership, the medical physics educational and board certification program was established in Korea. He also contributed significantly to international collaborations with a membership of IOMP in 1991 and with starting of the Korean-Japan Joint meeting on Medical Physics in 1996. He was a pioneer in the field of medical physics of Korea, became the first medical professor as a medical physicist in Korea. He served as a clinical physicist at Yonsei University Hospital for over thirty years and always had great enthusiasm for the development and application of medical physics to more effective and safer radiation therapy. He was a great teacher for the students to advance their understanding in medical physics.

To honour his contribution to medical physics in the AFOMP region, AFOMP together with the funding support of KSMP established the “Professor Sung Sil Chu AFOMP Best Student’s Publication Award

Objective: The “Professor Sung Sil Chu AFOMP Best Student’s Publication Award” is an annual award to be given to the best publication by MSc or PhD students in medical physics to encourage publications from students during their postgraduate studies. Only postgraduate students from a low- or lower-middle-income country (as defined by The World Bank) in the AFOMP region are eligible for this award. The award is sponsored by the KSMP.

Presentation: The “Professor Sung Sil Chu AFOMP Best Student’s Publication Award” will be presented annually at the Asia-Oceania Congress on Medical Physics (AOCMP) to the awardee judged by the AFOMP’s Awards and Honours Committee (AHC) for the best publication in the year of award in terms of clinical relevance, scientific merit, and clarity of presentation.

Nomination procedure: The award will be advertised annually by AFOMP, using the mailing list and the website.

  1. Nominations should be made by the NMO’s President or Secretary General.
  2. The nominee must be a current postgraduate student (MSc or PhD) in medical physics (or equivalent) registered with an institution from the AFOMP region.
  3. Despite the location of the institution, the nominee must show nationality from a low-income or lower-middle-income country in the AFOMP region, as defined by The World Bank (refer link here).
  4. The nominee must be the first author of the publication.
  5. Only papers published from 01-January to 31-December of the previous year of awarding are eligible for nomination. Papers which have been accepted but yet to be published (e.g. in press) within this time frame are also eligible for nomination.
  6. Nominations are to be made to the Chair of the AHC and Secretary General of AFOMP and should include the following:
    a) A nomination form identifying the publication and a short description of the published work (the form will be made available with the call for nominations).
    b) A copy of the publication in the official published format. A proof of acceptance must be attached if the paper is still in press.
    c) A copy of the student’s identity and certified by the institution. It is the responsibility of the NMO’s President or Secretary General to verify the student’s identity.
  7. Self-nominations will not be considered.
  8. Current members of the AFOMP AHC committee and the ExCom are ineligible to be nominated.

Criteria for selection:

The primary selection criteria for the Best Publication are:

  1. The publication must be an original scientific or technical work (reviews, commentaries or similar are excluded).
  2. The publication must show excellent scientific merit, novelty, and clinical relevance to medical physics.
  3. The publication must be published or accepted by a reputable journal (as generally recognised by the community of medical physics), including AFOMP official journals.
  4. Number of citations and downloads.

Selection: All eligible nominations will be evaluated by the AHC, and a recommendation will be put forward to the AFOMP Executive for consideration.

The Award will consist of a cash prize of US$ 400, a certificate and a memento. The awardee will give a presentation of his/her work during AOCMP.