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As a regional representative of IOMP, AFOMP is using the opportunity to honor the contributions of our own titans of medical physics. It’s possible that the younger medical physicists in the area are unaware of our modest origins and how many people’s contributions have led us to this point in time. In honor of the valuable contributions made by our medical physicists, AFOMP has initiated an interview series featuring prominent figures from the area. This is another interview of this series. Prominent medical physicist Prof. Agnette de Perio Peralta was interviewed.
Prof. Agnette de Perio Peralta worked for 49 years in the Department of Health (DOH) before retiring in 2017 as an Assistant Secretary of Health. She was an instructor in the Physics Department of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City before transferring to the Radiation Health Office, DOH. She rose from the ranks to lead the office, which eventually became the Center for Device Regulation, Radiation Health, and Research under the Food and Drug Administration of the DOH. Her prominent role made her the most recognized medical physicist in the Philippines, allowing her to champion the growth of medical physics in the country.
She also made history by working at the World Health Organization for five months on secondment from the DOH, becoming the only Filipino medical physicist to do so. Prof. Peralta is a certified diagnostic radiology medical physicist accredited by the Board of Medical Physics of the Society of Medical Physicists in the Republic of the Philippines. She earned a Bachelor of Science major in Physics degree from UP Diliman, a Master of Science in Medical Physics degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and a Master’s degree in Hospital Administration from St. Bernadette of Lourdes College in Fairview, Quezon City.
Since 1983, she has been a part-time educator at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Graduate School Medical Physics program. Up to July 2023, she had taught all medical physicists in her country, except for four who studied abroad for theirmedical physics graduate degrees. Up to July 2023, she also served as the DOH coordinator and later program lead for the UST Medical Physics program. Prof. Peralta’s research papers have been presented at medical physics conferences and published in scientific journals. She has been an amicus curiae expert witness in several court hearings on radiation matters and as a resource person in committee hearings of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines.
Prof. Peralta’s global impact is underscored by her 12-year service as the only Filipino to be elected a member of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. She is the only Filipino elected as a Fellow of the International Organization for Medical Physics. She is the founding president of the Philippine Organization of Medical Physicists, which is now known as the Society of Medical Physicists in the Republic of the Philippines (SMPRP). She served as the president of the South East Asian Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (SEAFOMP), to date the only Filipino to hold this position. In 2020, the Asia-Oceania Federation of Organizations for Medical Physics (AFOMP) honored her as one of the 21 “Outstanding Medical Physicists from the AFOMP Region,” marking the first time in its 20-year history that such an award was bestowed. She was also one of the co-founders of SEAFOMP and AFOMP. On December 8, 2023 during the International Conference on Medical Physics in Mumbai, she was the AFOMP Professor Kiyonari Inamura Memorial Oration Speaker.
Prof. Peralta has also garnered several prestigious awards in her country. These include the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philippine Association for Radiation Protection in 2007 and the Distinguished Faculty Member award from UST Graduate School in 2018. In 2022, she was one of two medical physicists to receive the SMPRP 2nd Celia T. Anatalio Lifetime Achievement Award and one of nine medical physicists to receive the SMPRP 1st Luciano N. Niguidula Service Award. Currently, she serves as a Professorial Lecturer II at UST Graduate School and occasionally lectures at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government. Since 2019, she has been the Chairperson of the Subcommittee on Clinical Equipment and Devices of the Health Technology Assessment Council (HTAC) in the Philippines, making her the first and only Filipino medical physicist in HTAC Philippines.
– Prepared by Assistant Professor Dr Rajni Verma