Implementation of a virtual medical physics laboratory

The use of computer simulations that represent real experiments in medical physics is an alternative to reduce costs and provide a greater variety of experiments involving ionizing radiation. The virtual laboratory allows the exploration of a range of concepts in a similar manner to experimental approaches, enabling the utilization of a multitude of sources, materials, and detectors without incurring additional costs. Furthermore, computer simulations allow the exploration of aspects that are unattainable with real experiments. This article describes the implementation of a Virtual Medical Physics Laboratory that, through intuitive graphical interfaces, guided scripts, and historical context, explores widely used experiments in the areas of nuclear medicine, radiodiagnostics, and radiotherapy. As an example, we present the experiment on radiation attenuation (X-rays and gamma rays) with matter. The experiments were implemented using the Python programming language. The graphical interface was developed using the Streamlit framework. The use of the Virtual Medical Physics Laboratory has proven to be an alternative tool for bridging the gap between practical and theoretical teaching.

Keywords:
Virtual laboratory; radiation attenuation; computational simulation; physics teaching