r/MedicalPhysics

This is the place to ask questions about graduate school, training programs, or general basic career topics. If you are just learning about the field and want to know if it is something you should explore, this thread is probably the correct place for those first few questions on your mind.

Examples:

• "I majored in Surf Science and Technology in undergrad, is Medical Physics right for me?"
• "I can't decide between Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics..."
• "Do Medical Physicists get free CT scans for life?"
• "Masters vs. PhD"
• "How do I prepare for Residency interviews?"

Kinda like an ELI5. How would you explain Medical Physics as a field/career to someone who doesn’t know anything about it in a couple sentences?

I am currently an undergraduate Physics student at the University of Houston. I am interested in Medical Physics, and plan to apply to masters programs this fall. I’ve met with a few professionals in the field and gotten some good advice regarding applications, and what to expect in the career.

I would love to shadow a Medical Physicists before applying, to get a better grasp of where I see myself in the field, and just to have the experience for my resume/ potential interviews.

My local contact was unable to get me an opportunity at their clinic, so I am writing here to seek advice of what you might recommend for someone in my situation. I have been told to reach out (cold calls or emails) asking to connect with a medical physicist. If you’d go this route I’d love to know what kind of places you’d recommend I reach out to, and how to get in contact with someone in Medical Physics.

I feel like we are just constantly cranking up our mAs on our Truebeam CBCT protocol and wanted to know what you all were using.

NEMA based PET QA protocols like TG 126 recommend a relatively high activity concentration (up to 10 mCi/ml) which isn't always feasible if tests are carried out after clinical activity has ended. However, acquisitions are done in terms of total counts, so at a first glance it doesn't seem to be much of an issue if we simply allow for longer acquisition times.

Does anyone have experience with this particular issue?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a Monte Carlo model of the Varian Halcyon LINAC head, but I’m having difficulty finding sufficiently detailed geometric information in papers, patents, etc.

Has anyone here worked on modeling the Halcyon treatment head before? If so, do you have any recommendations on where to find the necessary technical information?

I’d also like to know whether a reasonably detailed model can realistically be built from publicly available information.

Thanks!

This is the place to ask questions about graduate school, training programs, or general basic career topics. If you are just learning about the field and want to know if it is something you should explore, this thread is probably the correct place for those first few questions on your mind.

Examples:

• "I majored in Surf Science and Technology in undergrad, is Medical Physics right for me?"
• "I can't decide between Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics..."
• "Do Medical Physicists get free CT scans for life?"
• "Masters vs. PhD"
• "How do I prepare for Residency interviews?"

I’m finishing an international CAMPEP-accredited medical physics residency (ABR eligible) and have a CAMPEP-accredited MSc. As I’m an international applicant I would need employment sponsorship, most likely an H-1B or potentially an O-1.

I’m curious to hear from people who have recent experience with this.

Have you or someone in your department recently had an H-1B sponsored for a medical physicist position?

Are academic/non-profit or cap-exempt centres significantly more willing to sponsor than private/community practices?

Has the recent uncertainty around the $100k H-1B fee affected your department’s willingness to sponsor?

If you’ve gone through this yourself, how difficult was it to find a centre willing to sponsor?

Any info at all is appreciated!

Yes, you heard that right. Our physics assistants are unionized and out earning our faculty physicists year-for-year for their entire salary progression.

Not really looking for advice, just a place to vent about how inverted our salaries have become at my institution due to lack of collective bargaining by faculty.

Just looking at ballpark cost

I was wondering how well your clinics are staffed with dosimetry when compared to average patient treatments/day?

what patient load would you consider a full FTE?

thank you.

View Poll

After reading several papers and internal documents from other centers, I noticed that people normally use metallic needles for template calibration QC, even though the treatment uses plastic needles. The alleged reason is to avoid bending. I have done it with both metallic needles and plastic ones with metallic obturators inside, and I did not find any noticeable curvature. The only difference I saw was that metallic needles cause more reverberation artifacts. Is it a bad idea to use plastic needles for any other reasons? What kind of needles do you use for this?