Christoph Trauernicht is the Head of the Medical Physics Division at Tygerberg Hospital and a Senior Lecturer at Stellenbosch University. He leads a team of five medical physicists, two radiographers and a mould room, together with a couple of medical physics clinical training posts.
He started off his career as a medical physicist at iThemba LABS, working in proton and neutron radiotherapy, before moving to Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town. Over the years Chris has taught courses on Physics of Radiotherapy, Physics of Nuclear Medicine and Physics of Diagnostic Radiology at a postgraduate level. He has taught at a number of Radiation Protection courses and has been involved with the Varian/UCT/CPUT Access to Care Training Course since its inception. This is a 3-week training course specifically designed for radiotherapy centers that wish to transition safely from 2-D to 3-D radiotherapy.
Chris is the current president of the South African Association of Physicists in Medicine and Biology (SAAPMB) and is the former chairperson of the South African Radiation Protection Society (SARPS). He currently serves on the Education and Training Committee of the IOMP.
Chris was a member of the bid committee, the congress organizing committee and a corresponding member of the International Congress Programme Committee of the IRPA14 congress that was held in Cape Town in 2016, where he also presented a refresher course on “Dosimetry and Optimization in Computed Tomography”. He was co-chairperson of the 2016 SAAPMB congress, and has served on the scientific committee of that congress since 2015.
Chris is project counterpart for the IAEA/AFRA project RAF6048 “Strengthening Medical Physicists’ Capacities to Ensure Safety in Medical Imaging, with an Emphasis on Paediatric Imaging Safety” and has helped out as an IAEA expert on a number of occasions. He was involved with the introduction of Lu-177 therapy and its dosimetry in the province.
Chris has published 10 papers, 2 book chapters and has 30 published congress abstracts. He has contributed to 80 national and international congress presentations, either as author, co-author or invited speaker. He has supervised or co-supervised 7 postgraduate students to completion.