Physics Medical Physics is an exciting field

[qball]

Um, qball? Who are you to tell Choppy (or anyone else) that what they do is or is not physics? I didn't know you held claim to the subject.

Choppy can believe whatever he wants, but if he believes that electrical engineering is physics then he is wrong.

 

[qball]

You must have a VERY narrow view of what physics is and what it means to be a physicist. Are you one of those types who believes that condensed matter physicists don't do physics either?

Engineering is a profession that directly derives from the application of physics to real world problems. (I mean, last I checked, engineers had to take some pretty rigorous physics classes. I know I'm getting older, but have things really changed that much?)

The question, maybe, is where one defines the border between physics and engineering. Whenever you have to explore the physics behind a problem to derive a solution, you're DOING physics. Yes engineers do this as a part of what they do. Physicists, professional ones anyway, are those who specialize in this process, often to the point of going so far as to formulate new theories and laws.

With respect to radiobiology not being physics, I suspect you're thinking along the lines of survival curves. You should look up the words "microdosimetry" and "nanodosimetry." Or better yet, try to figure out why it is Monte Carlo approaches to these calculations almost always use a medium of density-scaled water vapor rather than water.


In your rush to retort, you must have missed the spot where I was arguing these were aspects of medicine (radiation oncology specifically), not physics.


Not at all. When you take someone who spends a career studying medical images, and compare him or her with someone who spent 4 years in medical school and then specialized in something like psychiatry I think the MD would have some pretty hearty competition.

Good luck on your quals.

Perhaps I'm a bit of a purist. But by your definition pretty much any technical profession can be called a physics career. Let's be clear:

Physicists discover the laws of nature. Engineers apply them. Anytime you use existing physics to solve a problem you are not engaging in physics. There is no "often" in the definition. Physicists ALWAYS uncover something new. In that sense there is no "physics" in "medical physics."

If you think that solving problems is physics then you are operating with an undergraduate mindset.

If you want to include radiobiology under the heading of medicine, that's fine by me. My point is that you don't need to be a physicist to solve differential equations.

Monte Carlo calculations aren't physics either, by the way. Monte Carlo is a technique used to make predictions based on known laws of nature. You can't get any new physics out of Monte Carlo because you have to put all the physics you know *into* Monte Carlo. If there is a new law that's more than just a statistical property of the system you will not discover it with Monte Carlo.

 

[qball]

Good luck on your quals.

I'm assuming this is your attempt to discredit me by making the community believe I've yet to pass the quals. Good luck playing that angle.

 

[Norman]

Let's be clear:

Physicists discover the laws of nature. Engineers apply them. Anytime you use existing physics to solve a problem you are not engaging in physics. There is no "often" in the definition. Physicists ALWAYS uncover something new. In that sense there is no "physics" in "medical physics."

Yes, you are definitely not a physicist if this is what you believe a physicist is. But try telling this to all those experimentalists out there trying to test theories with their experiments. Yeah... they are not doing physics. By your definition, one of the main goals of the largest physics collaboration on Earth is not physics. You know the LHC is just looking for the Higgs, which has theoretically been understood for some time now... definitely just applying existing physics to solve a problem.

And just to be clear...

Physicists ALWAYS uncover something new.

is laughable. You can talk to me after you have done a few years of research and tell me about all the new things you have discovered and have your name on them...

 

[qball]

Yes, you are definitely not a physicist if this is what you believe a physicist is. But try telling this to all those experimentalists out there trying to test theories with their experiments. Yeah... they are not doing physics. By your definition, one of the main goals of the largest physics collaboration on Earth is not physics. You know the LHC is just looking for the Higgs, which has theoretically been understood for some time now... definitely just applying existing physics to solve a problem.

And just to be clear...

is laughable. You can talk to me after you have done a few years of research and tell me about all the new things you have discovered and have your name on them...

They are doing physics, because the Higgs may or may not exist. It doesn't matter if it's understood theoretically if it doesn't exist actually. This falls within the scope of my definition, because they are working to understand a part of nature that has never been understood before.

Contrast that with ANY branch of medical physics. In imaging research medical "physicists" work to improve existing medical imaging modalities by designing better detectors or better reconstruction techniques. This is applied math, or engineering, but it is not physics. In radiation oncology the main problem is to calculate the dose distribution better. In research you might come up with a new algorithm to do it, or run some Monte Carlo simulations, but in any case all the physics is known. There is nothing new here. The other major area that's growing in popularity is CAD, which involves only image processing and observer studies.

If you think that medical physics is physics then contrast what's happening presently in physics departments with what's going on in medical physics departments. If medical physicists are really doing physics, as you claim, you will find some overlap in the research because both would be working to uncover new physics. Except you don't find any overlap, because medical physicists are working to improve existing technologies, and physicists are looking for new and/or better descriptions of nature.

So in that sense you always discover something new if you are doing physics. Isn't that what the physics Ph.d. is all about -- making an original contribution to knowledge? My friends in physics are constantly testing the laws of nature, trying to figure out why things are the way they are. In medical physics you can make some novel phantom measurements and get your Ph.d.

I may not discover anything new, but then again I don't claim to be a physicist either.

There is a limited amount of useful information on medical physics available. Little has been written that is directed at the student. My goal is only that students interested in medical physics should have a realistic view of what the field is all about, and a realistic view is not given by the graduate colleges that offer degrees in medical physics.

I used to explain to my friends what I did in the lab, and they would say to me, "so why can't a technician just do that?" I was offended, but the more I would try to explain why a physics degree was necessary to do the work the more I realized there really was no good justification. My friends were of course correct in their assessment of the field, and it was I who was deceiving myself.

 

[Andy Resnick]

Wow... I thought hard-line jihadists were confined to religion.

 

[Choppy]

Just a few thoughts before I go to bed for the evening...

This has somehow drifted towards what is and what is not physics. I can't change your mind if you're going to walk around with your own personal definitions.

This discussion started out as a challenge about whether medical physicists need to understand graduate level physics. Simply put, I would not be able to perform my job without it. The same is true for my colleagues.

You argue that you are somehow looking out for students coming into this field by telling them they are essentially going to become "glorified technicians" and your posts would imply that they don't need to know any advanced physics (or even senior undergraduate physics for that matter). I don't see this as looking out for anyone because not only is it false, but it can lead new students into positions where they don't have the tools to pursue the career they want, or even worse place them in a position where they could do serious harm to someone if they slip through the cracks and manage to get into the profession.

Not to mention, as a person who spent the last year busting my hump to complete a residency, pass board exams, mentor students and carry on with a research program (all of which seemed to involve everyone else's definition of "doing" physics), being called a "glorified technician" by a student who likely just started a PhD research project, is just a little bit insulting.

 

[qball]

Just a few thoughts before I go to bed for the evening...

This has somehow drifted towards what is and what is not physics. I can't change your mind if you're going to walk around with your own personal definitions.

This discussion started out as a challenge about whether medical physicists need to understand graduate level physics. Simply put, I would not be able to perform my job without it. The same is true for my colleagues.

You argue that you are somehow looking out for students coming into this field by telling them they are essentially going to become "glorified technicians" and your posts would imply that they don't need to know any advanced physics (or even senior undergraduate physics for that matter). I don't see this as looking out for anyone because not only is it false, but it can lead new students into positions where they don't have the tools to pursue the career they want, or even worse place them in a position where they could do serious harm to someone if they slip through the cracks and manage to get into the profession.

Not to mention, as a person who spent the last year busting my hump to complete a residency, pass board exams, mentor students and carry on with a research program (all of which seemed to involve everyone else's definition of "doing" physics), being called a "glorified technician" by a student who likely just started a PhD research project, is just a little bit insulting.

If you still think you are right, look at the graduate programs and see how many of them require graduate physics. I think the number of programs that require more than 2 or 3 courses is close to zero, and those courses are electives. Apparently the departments don't think it's important what physics students takes, no doubt because they won't be applying any of it.

You can believe what you want to believe, but you're still wrong. My medical physics department is populated by biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering students. All of them are doing quite well without any knowledge of graduate physics. That includes the professoriate, many of whom have degrees in pure medical physics with little graduate education in physics.

Think about what you're saying. If graduate physics were REALLY a requirement, wouldn't medical physics programs require a masters in physics instead of a bachelor's in physics, chemistry, engineering, or other related disciplines? And if it were really important, wouldn't graduate programs require students to take a full sequence of graduate level physics courses?

If you want to go with your all-encompassing definition of physics, be my guest. But you are bullgarbageting only yourself and maybe a few others who desperately want to believe they are physicists when they are not.

You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that under any circumstances in medical physics are graduate level QM, E&M, statistical mechanics, quantum field theory or classical mechanics applicable.

Also, don't worry about people "slipping through the cracks" and threatening the field. To prevent the encroachment of biomedical engineers into the field (and one can easily argue that they are at least if not more qualified for the field than a medical physicist), the ABR and AAPM are working hard to make physics degrees a requirement to take the board exams. Anyway, let the graduate programs decide who they think is qualified for their programs.

By the way, using Jackson as a paperweight for QA forms is not the same as using graduate physics in your day to day work...

 

[Locrian]

being called a "glorified technician" by a student who likely just started a PhD research project, is just a little bit insulting.

Certainly understandable. I (and likely others) have found the discussion interesting and have found your input valuable, so thanks for being willing to take the time to post.

 

[Choppy]

If you still think you are right, look at the graduate programs and see how many of them require graduate physics. I think the number of programs that require more than 2 or 3 courses is close to zero, and those courses are electives. Apparently the departments don't think it's important what physics students takes, no doubt because they won't be applying any of it.

That's what you're basing your argument on?

All CAMPEP accredited programs have extrermely heavy courseloads in the first year. These are graduate level courses offered through departments of physics, engineering and medicine that cover radiation physics, nuclear physics, radiobiology, medical imaging, instrumentation, anatomy and physiology, etc. that require senior undergraduate physics (and mathematics) courses as prerequisites. Finishing these courses establishes a minimum level of didactic learning necessary to graduate with an MSc.

All programs that I'm familiar with require PhD students to complete additional coursework. Some explicitly require graduate quantum, or E&M or whatever (mine did), others will leave this to the discretion of the supervisory committee, hence leaving open options for a student to take, for example, a graduate electrical engineering course in signal processing.

Now here's the thing. The debate about whether or not to include "core" physics classes as part of the cirriculum came up from time to time at the institution I used to work at. (It doesn't at our current institution because the department director would laugh in your face if you suggested taking them out). The argument against these courses is based only on TIME, not futility. Medical physics graduate students are overloaded with courses in their first year, and one of the CAMPEP requirements is that it should be reasonable for a student to finish an MSc program in two years. At some point the students have to do research (although from what I understand there are programs moving away from even that idea).

If you want to go with your all-encompassing definition of physics, be my guest. But you are bullgarbageting only yourself and maybe a few others who desperately want to believe they are physicists when they are not.

From dictionary.com:
phys·i·cist (fĭz'ĭ-sĭst)
n. A scientist who specializes in physics.

From AIP:
http://www.aip.org/careersvc/pify/yellow.html

From Wikipedia:
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made (particle physics) to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole (cosmology).

From CAP: (requirements for professional designation as a physicist)
http://www.cap.ca/cert/req.asp

I would be glad to see some references supporting the 'qball' definition of physicist.

 

[Choppy]

You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that under any circumstances in medical physics are graduate level QM, E&M, statistical mechanics, quantum field theory or classical mechanics applicable.

Something else that a lot of people only learn with time is that a field like medical physics isn't static. The technology in use now is not going to be the technology in use for the rest of one's career. We can train our new students very well in the technology we have, but no one can tell the future. The best means we have for preparing ourselves for the unknown is to hammer home the fundamentals.

Anyway, let the graduate programs decide who they think is qualified for their programs.

Yes. Let's. And while we're at it, let the senior physicists in medical physics departments decide who they think is qualified for their jobs..

 

[qball]

From dictionary.com:
phys·i·cist (fĭz'ĭ-sĭst)
n. A scientist who specializes in physics.

From AIP:
http://www.aip.org/careersvc/pify/yellow.html

From Wikipedia:
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made (particle physics) to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole (cosmology).

From CAP: (requirements for professional designation as a physicist)
http://www.cap.ca/cert/req.asp

I would be glad to see some references supporting the 'qball' definition of physicist.

You just listed them. None of them say, "technician."

The CAP site is a ****ing joke, by the way. Be of good character? Hey, guess Feynman wasn't a physicist by YOUR definitions...

 

[qball]

Something else that a lot of people only learn with time is that a field like medical physics isn't static. The technology in use now is not going to be the technology in use for the rest of one's career. We can train our new students very well in the technology we have, but no one can tell the future. The best means we have for preparing ourselves for the unknown is to hammer home the fundamentals.


Yes. Let's. And while we're at it, let the senior physicists in medical physics departments decide who they think is qualified for their jobs..

I didn't say you weren't qualified, I just said you weren't a physicist. I'm sure you're an excellent "medical physicist."

 

[symbolipoint]

Would all the medical physicists reading this thread please tell your definitions of "medical physicist" and how your job conforms to the meaning/definition? I ask this after now reading the posts between Choppy and qball.

Some people seem to misinterpret the meaning of "technician". A technician might be albe to do and understand an unpredictable variety of specific things. The word, having only the most general of reliable definitions on its own, is very imprecise. I have seen job advertisements for "technician" with the stated educational qualifications fo PhD. Too, I've seen some "technician" job ads listing qualifications as "M.S. degree and 5 years experience". I really do not know how all this relates to medical physics, since I am not one, nor am I any physicist. Still, if any medical physicist is titled in his job as "Technician", he may very well have a bachelor's degree or higher. There is nothing bad about having elaborate technical skills and conceptual decision-making power while also functioning in a job as a technician. Along this line, a technician may also be either a scientist or an engineer.

 

[qball]

Would all the medical physicists reading this thread please tell your definitions of "medical physicist" and how your job conforms to the meaning/definition? I ask this after now reading the posts between Choppy and qball.

Some people seem to misinterpret the meaning of "technician". A technician might be albe to do and understand an unpredictable variety of specific things. The word, having only the most general of reliable definitions on its own, is very imprecise. I have seen job advertisements for "technician" with the stated educational qualifications fo PhD. Too, I've seen some "technician" job ads listing qualifications as "M.S. degree and 5 years experience". I really do not know how all this relates to medical physics, since I am not one, nor am I any physicist. Still, if any medical physicist is titled in his job as "Technician", he may very well have a bachelor's degree or higher. There is nothing bad about having elaborate technical skills and conceptual decision-making power while also functioning in a job as a technician. Along this line, a technician may also be either a scientist or an engineer.

I am in medical physics, and my definition of a physicist doesn't include what I do.

 

[HungryChemist]

Very interesting discussion. First of all, let's say both Choppy and qball is doing their best to represent their own personal views regarding the profession called 'medical physicist' and this is very educational and fulfilling the purpose of internet forum. So I thank you both. Hearing from Choppy, I can only guess he is up in the ladder of this medical physics community(pass the board and all, congrat!) while qball only began his carrier. Perhaps, the disagreement b/t them is only natural since they're in different stages of their carrier path.

I'm also a medical physics student at an well-known CAMPEP accredited program and I did finish a lot of didactic courses work while participating research actively. So let others hear my opinions regarding what's been discussed so far by Chubby and qball.

Regarding whether or not medical physicist is real physicist. In my personal opinion I must back qball in saying that medical physicist is not physicist (in academic sense) for the reasons qball stressed so much already. Now, I'm sure there are some great physicist working as a medical physicists (or used to be great physicist either by education or their previous work), but being a medical physicist doesn't automatically mean that you are a physicist (it's not backward compatible!).

Of course, everyone's definition of being physicist is little different. But I must say, making medical physicist a subset of physicist is almost equivalent to making TV repair technician a subset of electrical engineer. Heck, I could even call a high school kid taking physics class a physicist just because he's applying laws of physics to solve his physics problem? But it really doesn't matter what the two medical physicists (I reckon one's a student yet) here say on how they should call each other. What matters is what others think of medical physicist (again personal opinion).

Let's do some thought experiment. Can you imagine a typical physics department hiring a medical physicist (let's say someone who has Ph.D. in medical physics from CAMPEP) to do any of typical physics research work that gets published in any of typical physics journals like physics reviews? I myself certainly can't. Can you imagine a typical physics department hiring a medical physicist to teach Quantum Mechanics class or even an general physics class? Again, I can't.

For all practical purpose, let's just call medical physicist a medical physicist and physicist a physicist and don't mix them up.( but if the physicians want to call us by physicist, we let them, just because physicist sounds much smarter than medical physicist).

Now, back to qball's comment about medical physicist just being "Glorious Tech". I think that was unfair call for all the medical physicists out there who strive to investigate and research to improve the clinical outcome and even advance the field of medicine as well as some of its involved engineering fields( EE, NE, and what not, but definitely not HEP). I can only infer qball meant the word for clinical physicist who is not involved in any type of research activity. But still, we should call them by clinical medical physicist.

 

[Choppy]

I still strongly disagree. A medical physicist is first and foremost a physicist.

In your thought experiment, you seem to have somehow equated "physics professor" with "physicist." I would agree that all physics professors are physicists, but I would not agree that all physicists are professors. Just because one doesn't teach quantum mechanics, doesn't mean one is not a physicist. (For the record, however, I could certainly imagine PhD graduates from the CAMPEP programs I am familiar with teaching at these levels if they chose to do so, based on having taken the same level of E&M and QM as every other PhD student in their physics departments and having passed qualifying/candidacy exams.)

Secondly, I don't understand what's practical about refusing to call yourself a physicist. If you don't want that title, then that's fine. But don't tell me that I can't use it and don't limit an ENTIRE PROFESSION because of it. Like qball, you're a student and you have limited scope of what it means to be a practicing physicist - even if you have taken some courses in a CAMPEP program.

One day, if you continue in medical physics, you're going to be working with radiation therapists and treatment planners. What makes you, as a medical physicist, different from them? The answer is your background in physics. If medical physicists ever forget that, our profession will disappear.

 

[SbF5]

It is true that we don't use differential equations or advanced E&M or quantum every day in the clinic. But they come up in research, or when you're given a problem in the clinic that the "technicians" (dosimetrists, radiation therapists, imaging technicians), engineers, trades, and physicians can't solve.

One of the problems my research group is interested in for example is combining a linear accelerator with an MRI unit. Try solving some of the RF issues that come up without any background in E&M. Or for that matter try designing any of your own equipment beyond simple phantoms. I have many days where I wish I had a stronger background in electrical engineering.

Or what if a physician asks you to perform a BED (biologically equivalent dose) calculation that accounts for aspects of tumor proliferation that aren't covered in the "standard" formulas? If you have to tell the physician that they had better call a "real" physicist, who took a differential equations class, then you're not doing your job.

Choppy; I enjoy your posts. Could you give some more detailed examples from your work where you used trainning in mathematics or physics to solve the problem (an unusual problem where the trainning was useful)? I'm curious at what level a person needs to be in these areas to really be effective in the clinic.

 

[HungryChemist]

In your thought experiment, you seem to have somehow equated "physics professor" with "physicist."

No, I didn't. I simply picked physics professor in my thought experiment because they are mostly physicist (you and I both agree to that one) As it is with any experiment, I simply chose one design over the other to test. I could have as well chose 'semi-conductor research lab looking for a physicist' which again, a person with didactic medical physics education/work background would not be (in general) a good candidate. (Now, don't go on and saying that you and others you know can definitely do semi conductor physics research, because I know, since I believe you, but I'm talking in general!)

I would agree that all physics professors are physicists, but I would not agree that all physicists are professors.

I did not said all physicists are professors. You can't disagree with me on the things that I did not claim.

Just because one doesn't teach quantum mechanics, doesn't mean one is not a physicist.

Again, I did not say that.

(For the record, however, I could certainly imagine PhD graduates from the CAMPEP programs I am familiar with teaching at these levels if they chose to do so, based on having taken the same level of E&M and QM as every other PhD student in their physics departments and having passed qualifying/candidacy exams.)

Again, let me remind you that most of existing CAMPEP program dose not require any of graduate level physics classes. Many of ABR approved physicists never had physics education at the level that is equivalent to graduate level physics degree. So, while I fully admit that you and your colleges can indeed teach physics courses at the graduate level and all, there are many fully qualified medical physicist(who are great at what they do) but who can't teach graduate level physics(myself included). And this is no way of degrading or looking down on any of the medical physicists who can't. I'm simply acknowledging that our professional training and education as a medical physicist is quiet different from that of typical physicists.

Secondly, I don't understand what's practical about refusing to call yourself a physicist.

Well, its practical because by calling different name for medical physicist, we acknowledge our training and skills are very special, and indeed unique from general physicists. For all practical purpose, this is why when radiation oncology department post their job opening to fill a clinical medical physicists they will (and should) say medical physicist wanted rather than physicists wanted. This not only eliminates some confusion to general physicists wondering about the job position, it also gives sense of special professionalism for medical physicists.

But don't tell me that I can't use it and don't limit an ENTIRE PROFESSION because of it.

Again, I did not say you CANT call yourself a physicist. Whether you're a physicist or not is not my concern. My concern was to whether or not the term medical physicist should be considered subset of physicists. And again, you make it sound like I'm against my own profession. I'm a medical physicist want to be. That is why I'm spending significant youth of my life studying the didactic courses as well as actively participating research that might bring some benefit to the clinics. I'm proud of what I'm doing. As for you're claiming that I'm limiting my profession because I want 'medical physicist' to be called 'medical physicist' is nonsense. How is calling our profession by special name is limiting? By ensuring others to acknowledge us as a very specialized professionals called 'medical physicist' we're doing ourselves a favor. This way we can keep our professionalism intact from some rogue physicists who are not properly trained in medical physics to think that he can do what we do.

Like qball, you're a student and you have limited scope of what it means to be a practicing physicist - even if you have taken some courses in a CAMPEP program.

You may be right. Maybe one day, I will go to linac to prepare for my water phantom QA and find a new particle called 'medphy-trino' and become a particle physicist.

One day, if you continue in medical physics, you're going to be working with radiation therapists and treatment planners. What makes you, as a medical physicist, different from them? The answer is your background in physics. If medical physicists ever forget that, our profession will disappear.

Wow, so all my professors and fellow collegues who doesn't have that 'physics background' you claimed to have are not different from other professions you mentioned? Medical physicist job is different from other jobs you listed above because what medical physicist 'do' is different from others. Certainly not because you know more physics than them.

 

[Choppy]

Choppy; I enjoy your posts. Could you give some more detailed examples from your work where you used trainning in mathematics or physics to solve the problem (an unusual problem where the trainning was useful)? I'm curious at what level a person needs to be in these areas to really be effective in the clinic.

Hi SbF5,

The most interesting problems are the ones that we tackle for research, or when have to introduce a new technology into the clinic. One of the first tasks I got involved in after finishing my graduate studies was developing an in-house Monte Carlo-based treatment planning and verification system. The nuts and bolts of that were largerly computer-science type stuff (like parallel computing optimization), but then I got into variance reduction and de-noising algorithms where courses like signal processing and mathematical methods helped considerably. This then served as a platform for a number of research investigations, where in some cases, even the formulation of the basic cross-sections cames into question.

It's hard to say exactly what one would "typically" encounter. Developing the kind of system I just mentioned isn't exactly typical in a smaller facility with only a few working physicists. But even these physicists could be asked to do things like develop an in-house monitor-unit calculator, or do some deformable image registration so that the oncologists can compare images from different modalities. Or they might need to figure out questions that come up when a new technology enters the clinic. Say for example, your facility is getting an X-band linac - is the RF generated by the machine the same as for an S-band - are there potential consqeuences for pacemaker patients? Or they might need to figure out why a properly calibrated well chamber consistently gives a low reading during brachytherapy seed QA.

The kinds of problems that come up clinically (especially those in smaller centres) are often discussed on medical physics list servers such as:
http://lists.wayne.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=medphys&A=1 (global)
http://lists.wayne.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=medphysusa&A=1 (USA)
Personally, I think students/residents should subscribe to these, but as a warning, on some days they can rather quickly fill up your inbox.

 

[SbF5]

Thanks, I'll check those out.

 

[Clancy Brown]

Hi Gang,

Thanks for the initial post Jono, the contributions has been interesting and lively to say the least. I was introduced by mistake to the exciting field of Medical Physics while searching on a topic in my current studies.

I am half way through my Electronics engineering degree with a specialization in Biomedical engineering and am hoping to further a career as a Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist (ROMP) here in Australia; for I feel this position will fulfill my interests and also to work as an engineer and a scientist. In Australia it is a long road to be an accredited ROMP, with at least MSc Medical Physics and 5 years clinic practice.

I thoroughly enjoyed the work experience tips that were posted earlier.

Is there still a skills shortage of Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist world wide?

Cheers.

 

[Choppy]

Is there still a skills shortage of Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist world wide?

There are a number of factors influencing the demand and supply of medical physicists.

First, due largely to an aging population, the number of worldwide cases of cancer is expected to increase by a factor of about 40% over the next 20 years, so if absolutely nothing else changed, one would expect the demand for all cancer-related professions to increase by a similar factor over the same period.

On top of that, radiation therapy complexity has increased drastically over the last decade. Starting in the late nineties, there was a shift towards intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatments - where inverse planning allowed radiation dose distributions to be optimized within a given target volume. This type of treatment required substantially more work from a physics perspective: algorithm optimization, procedure definitions, plan optimizations, patient-specific QA, more machine QA, etc. which led to a small explosion in demand for medical physicists.

More recently, over the last five years or so, we're seeing a shift towards image guidance and adaptive radiation therapy. Again - more complex technology, more work for the physicists. Now when I commission a linac for example, it's not just the therapy beam, I also have to commission the imaging system as well. In the near future we're likely going to see an increase in proton therapy facilities, and possibly even MRI-guided radiation therapy, which will expand the role and responsibilities of medical physicists even further, and thus mean that more qualified medical physicists will be needed.

In North America, you're also likely to see an artificial bottleneck placed on qualified medical physicists in the coming years. By 2014, I believe, applicants for ABR certification will need to have completed a CAMPEP-accredited graduate degree and residency. To my knowledge this is specific to the ABR, but it is reasonable to expect the CCPM and other equivalent agencies across the world to follow suit. Because there are only a limited number of accredited graduate programs, the number of new qualified medical physicists will likely slow.

On the other side of the equation, right now, you have a slow economy, which effects hiring in the healthcare sector and thus medical physicists. This doesn't mean the demand isn't there.

 

[DrJD]

Just wanted to add that in my experience Medical Physicists are definitely more than just technicians.

In our rad onc department, the physicists are heavily involved in some really cool research. A lot of engineering, programming, and radiation physics. Now, are they thinking about the physics of a black hole? Of course not. But they are definitely actively engaged in physics. They are no more a technician than a Radiologist is a technician because he looks and and reads chest radiographs.

Medical physics is an amazing field!

Plus, like choppy was saying soon they will have even more responsibility. I believe they will begin to be able to charge medicare for their services as a provider.

 

[MDPhysics]

I think the discussion on this thread is great. The duties of a medical physicist are so varied depending on the route you choose to specialize and work--it's not black and white; there are a lot of shades of gray. Some "medical" physicists are purely in research--they are no where near the clinic. While others you will find work day in and day out in a clinical setting (e.g. a cancer center) where they are actively involved in treating patients. It is an amazing field that gives you a lot of options in terms of job responsibilities. IMHO, however, a medical physicist is a physicist no matter how you look at it: no matter if you're in research or clincal, physics is an integral part of your work.

I will make a plug for my site, Edit: Spam deleted you will see just how different the responsibilities are. A "medical physicist" can work in academics (at a university), in industry (for GE, Elekta, Varian, etc) or at a hospital. It really all depends on what your passion is.

 

[AtomicPile]

I think the discussion on this thread is great. The duties of a medical physicist are so varied depending on the route you choose to specialize and work--it's not black and white; there are a lot of shades of gray. Some "medical" physicists are purely in research--they are no where near the clinic. While others you will find work day in and day out in a clinical setting (e.g. a cancer center) where they are actively involved in treating patients. It is an amazing field that gives you a lot of options in terms of job responsibilities. IMHO, however, a medical physicist is a physicist no matter how you look at it: no matter if you're in research or clincal, physics is an integral part of your work.

I will make a plug for my site,Edit: spam deleted you will see just how different the responsibilities are. A "medical physicist" can work in academics (at a university), in industry (for GE, Elekta, Varian, etc) or at a hospital. It really all depends on what your passion is.

The medical physics field is oversupplied and getting worse each semester. [Edit: link deleted] is a website owned and operated by people trying to fill academic programs and maybe make a few bucks with google-adsense. Please do yourself a favor:

1. Talk to real people about this profession. Meet them in person and not through some website or e-mail group.
2. Check with your local hospital to see what professionals the hospital is genuinely hiring.

 

[Choppy]

The medical physics field is oversupplied and getting worse each semester.

Do you have some data on this, or is this just an opinion? Personally, I'm not sure I would agree, for the reasons I outlined in a previous post.

1. Talk to real people about this profession. Meet them in person and not through some website or e-mail group.

Excellent advice. While there is some value in researching any profession online, nothing beats first hand experience. If you're thinking of entering this field, I would highly suggest job shadowing.

 

[qball]

To the editors: why delete the links? I actually wanted to see what website he was talking about. Use some discretion and common sense when deciding which posts are spam and which are legitimate.

 

[AtomicPile]

Do you have some data on this, or is this just an opinion? Personally, I'm not sure I would agree, for the reasons I outlined in a previous post.Excellent advice. While there is some value in researching any profession online, nothing beats first hand experience. If you're thinking of entering this field, I would highly suggest job shadowing.

I shadowed someone who was clinical faculty at The University of Texas MD Anderson. I specifically remember the person saying that he attended my university. It turns out that person lied. The person also lied to me about medical physics job prospects. Guess what? That person still works there.

Lesson learned: Do not ask the teacher if there is a demand. Even a school like Harvard, needs someone to be their student.

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I really like the baby boomer retiring logic that is often used to describe the pending medical physics shortage. If there is a labor shortage then the hospital will hire more therapists, dosimetrists and engineers.

Lesson 2: Do your homework and talk to people who are hiring. Find out what job titles they will be hiring in the future.
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Then there is the 2012/2014 CAMPEP certification requirement. This is a sales and marketing scheme achieved by creating a sense of shortage and a false time constraint. That way "medical physics" will have a perceived future value that is higher and realizable in the near term.

Lesson 3: This would be similar to physicists in the 1990's being told that the faculty would be retiring soon. You can read about that story in the in the newspaper and history books. Econophysics, biophysics, medical physics, our training program wants your money and cheap labor physics!
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Think about it very long and hard before spending you money and life on this pathway.

 

[Clancy Brown]

AtomicPile may I ask your current area of profession, I take it you are current not in a position within Medical Physics, as you seem very enthused and keen as posted.

I actually came across the profession Radiation Oncology Medical Physicist (ROMP) quite by mistake. I have done a great deal of research into the profession in the last three weeks, and am meeting my State Government's director in Radiation Oncology in the coming weeks to discuss the profession futher.

From my perspective (down under), there is a shortage of ROMPs; why would the director be so keen to meet with me and inform and show me aspects of the profession first hand. The shortage forecast is said to be so severe, that IAEA has provided a training program manual free to the public as a framework for new entrants to the profession.

I am sorry that you felt that you have been misrepresented and lead up the garden path in the past.