Job Skills Astronomer to Med Physicist or Dosimetrist - UK or US

[Volatile_Miniworld]

Well, I have a bit of a complicated situation and I'd love some advice.

I'm a US/UK citizen living and working in London, UK at the moment. My husband and I are currently looking at moving back to the US in 2-3 years.

My background is in physics/astrophysics - B.S. Physics (Maths minor) from a university in America, PhD Physics (specialising in Observational Astrophysics research) from a university in the UK. I worked as a postdoctoral research associate in astrophysics for 5 years in the UK and published numerous articles. I then obtained a permanent position in public outreach and engagement and worked my way up to managing a team of scientists for engagement and the science public engagement programme. I've been doing this for the past 3 years or so.

I deeply miss the technical side of science in my job and I don't particularly want to go back into the world of academia with the uncertainty of temporary contracts. I've been considering how I might be able to apply my physics knowledge to real world problems, particularly my experience with visualising data and coding. I'm interested in switching to medical physics or dosimetry, though I have a few questions/concerns:

1. I've found the 1-year certification programmes for individuals with PhDs to switch into Medical Physics in the US, but from what I've heard it has become increasingly difficult to secure a residency. Is it true that residencies have become incredibly competitive and typically go to individuals who have PhDs in Medical Physics? What can you do with a CAMPEP 1-year certificate in Medical Physics if you don't get into a residency? I'm trying to avoid getting another PhD if at all possible.

2. What is the process for becoming a dosimetrist in the US? I've found the JRCERT programmes but a lot of them seem to require you to be a certified radiation therapist first - with my background, should I be aiming for a BS, MS, PhD or certificate?

3. How can I strengthen my application for a medical physics or dosimetry programme? I'm looking at volunteer work in hospitals over the next 2 years, but obviously the pandemic makes this more difficult at the moment. I'm happy to take supplementary courses in biology and anatomy if this would also be helpful.

4. What are the main differences between dosimetry and medical physics? What is the career progression/paths like for either of them? How are the job prospects looking for them?

5. I'm assuming retraining in the UK and then trying to secure a job in the US is probably a bad idea - from what I can tell, the qualifications/certifications don't translate between the countries very easily. It would be amazing if I could do some of the training over in the UK in advance, but I think that is probably not very likely. If anyone has moved from the UK to the US in these fields, I'd also love to hear from you.

Thanks for any insight! I appreciate this is quite a long post.

Best wishes.

 

[Choppy]

I don't have much to offer on the UK side of things (I'm Canadian). But with respect to the US and Canada...

1. I've found the 1-year certification programmes for individuals with PhDs to switch into Medical Physics in the US, but from what I've heard it has become increasingly difficult to secure a residency. Is it true that residencies have become incredibly competitive and typically go to individuals who have PhDs in Medical Physics? What can you do with a CAMPEP 1-year certificate in Medical Physics if you don't get into a residency? I'm trying to avoid getting another PhD if at all possible.

I think it's actually been getting better in the past few years. You can check out some general statistics for residency admissions on the CAMPEP website.
http://www.campep.org/2020AnnualGraduateReport.pdf
You can see in 2020 only about 3% certificate students were still seeking a position as of whenever they took those states.

Generally speaking, post-PhD certificate students are taken on par with medical physics PhD graduates. While they typically have less experience in the field than med phys PhD graduates, they can bring bring a different skill set to the profession and sometimes that can be seen as a boon.

There would be no reason to do another PhD. If you don't get into a certificate program, the alternative would be a medical physics MSc. One of the main advantages of going this route is that, depending on the program, MSc student receive financial support. Certificate students more typically have to support themselves.

For those graduates who don't get into a residency:
- post-doctoral research programs and fellowships
- industry research and development (there are a lot of companies that hire medical physics graduates from the big guns like Varian, Elekta, Philips all they way down to smaller start-ups)
- industry education and support (medical physics graduates can be hired as trainers, or customer support - and this isn't just sitting on a help-line helping people find the "any" key. Often this can involve very serious and high-stakes problem-solving.)
- some can be hired temporarily to help with commissioning new cancer centers or new linear accelerators
- government and regulatory positions (radiation safety officers)
- industrial sales (multi-million dollar contracts on new linear accelerators, etc.)
- start-up your own company

2. What is the process for becoming a dosimetrist in the US? I've found the JRCERT programmes but a lot of them seem to require you to be a certified radiation therapist first - with my background, should I be aiming for a BS, MS, PhD or certificate?

All of the dosimetrists I know were radiation therapists first. I can't speak much to the formal process. I know there are programs for people to get certified in dosimetry without RT experience first, but something to consider is that often an RT department will look to hire and train from within its own ranks first rather than hire an outsider (at least in my experience). If you do decide to enroll in a dosimetry training program, make sure you see statistics on their graduates first.

3. How can I strengthen my application for a medical physics or dosimetry programme? I'm looking at volunteer work in hospitals over the next 2 years, but obviously the pandemic makes this more difficult at the moment. I'm happy to take supplementary courses in biology and anatomy if this would also be helpful.

Yes volunteer work helps. Or really any involvement in a medical-physics or even medical physics-related project. While course work in anatomy or biology is not going to hurt, it's probably not going to be seen as a decisive factor that would get you admitted over another candidate because those are courses you'll have to take anyway. What they're really looking for is evidence that you're going to be successful in the program and then go on ang be successful in the field. So even publications in observational astronomy could be seen as a plus here.

4. What are the main differences between dosimetry and medical physics? What is the career progression/paths like for either of them? How are the job prospects looking for them?

Dosimetrists concentrate almost exclusively on treatment planning. The scope of medical physics is a lot broader. This article has a summary...
https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/become-medical-physicist-3653-easy-steps/

 

[Volatile_Miniworld]

Thank you to @Choppy for answering this 4 years ago! Time flies!

I do have more questions now. I did - surprisingly - end up making the jump into a more medical physics related field. But, it is going to sound a bit bonkers, I ended up doing a 2nd PhD in Medical Imaging in the UK, focusing on diffusion MRI in paediatric brain tumour patients. It turns out, I missed the research more than I thought and I kind of fell into this opportunity after being rejected from a British medical physics training programme (these are very competitive and places are rare).

Originally, I was looking to move back to the US a few years ago and wanted to make the jump from astrophysics to medical physics after some training. Now, I'm in a situation where I have more experience in medical physics (MR imaging) research. My husband and I are still in the situation where we need to move to North America to be closer to my family. Unfortunately, moving to the US is no longer feasible for us because of the current state of the immigration system, so we are hoping to immigrate to Canada instead and reach a happy medium (I'm British-American, he is British).

My question - Obviously, my new PhD (I'm expected to submit my thesis in October and have a viva by December 2025) is not CAMPEP accredited. I would like to either pursue MRI research (postdoctoral positions) or medical physicist (MRI) positions in Canada. I'm struggling to:

(1) Find postdoctoral positions in MRI/dMRI. I'm open to learning different medical imaging modalities and branching out to other parts of the body or different age ranges (i.e. research in adults). I'm also open to applying for fellowships or grants, but I don't have any direct collaborators in Canada.

(2) Understand the medical physicist route for non-ionising radiation imaging. If I do want to pursue a Graduate Certificate in Medical Physics in Canada first, all of these seem to be in Medical Radiation Physics?

We would prefer to be around the Toronto or Montreal areas, but would consider Vancouver as well. Unfortunately, we are limited by the types of laws certain regions are passing, these laws would directly affect us (hence why we cannot move to the US at the moment).

Any advice is welcome. We are already beginning to put together documentation for PR to Canada, I'm not sure how easy or difficult this will be.

Thank you!

 

[Choppy]

MRI physics is something of its own world compared with radiation oncology physics.

On the certification front I would still recommend aiming for membership with the CCPM if you want to work in Canada. The requirement for having completed a CAMPEP-accredited residency to write the exam applies specifically to ROP. Because MRI residencies are few and far between, the requirement is two years of comprehensive patient-related experience. You don't need to go through a certificate program (and I think you're correct in that there really aren't any for MRI physics). The trick is really getting a job or a residency that will allow you to gain that experience.

On the job front, there's growing demand for MRI physicists. MR simulation and MR-linac hybrids are becoming a lot more popular in cancer care, for example. (I can't say too much about the diagnostic imaging world, though I'm sure there's demand there as well.) I strongly suspect one of the best ways of finding jobs in this area is through networking and even "building up" your position. You might start out, for example as an MRI safety officer and then move into a physicist position as you demonstrate the need for one.

 

[Volatile_Miniworld]

@Choppy Thank you for the advice, I really appreciate it. This is really helpful.

Regarding the 2 years of comprehensive patient-related experience, presumably I would need to do that in Canada (or could I do this in the UK)? I appreciate that you may not know for MRI. I will look into membership with CCPM and can contact them directly as well.

I think the most challenging thing for me is actually in finding a way to move to Canada. After looking into PR, I think I'm a bit too old to apply for the express entry (I lose quite a few points because I'm 38 and my husband is 41). The downside to having had a previous career as an astrophysicist, I guess. I think there are a few people that I can contact in MR research in various cities that we are interested in, so hopefully through networking I'll be able to get some advice as well.

Thank you again!

 

[Choppy]

Regarding the 2 years of comprehensive patient-related experience, presumably I would need to do that in Canada (or could I do this in the UK)? I appreciate that you may not know for MRI. I will look into membership with CCPM and can contact them directly as well.

Here's a link to the CCPM regulations, which I believe is public-facing:
https://ccpm.ca/_uploads/6564c0512c112.pdf

Section D.2 deals with membership eligibility. In RO physics the experience has to come from a CAMPEP accredited residency--almost all of which are in Canada or the US. I don't see anything that specifically says that experience must be in Canada for the other specialties though, but section D.2.8 still applies.