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Medical Physics Residency
Program Overview
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Clinical Rotations | Program Overview

The training program follows the “Essentials and Guidelines for Hospital Based Medical Physics Residency Training Programs” as outlined in AAPM Report #36. It is also a goal of the program for the resident to demonstrate understanding of the topics from the study guides of the American Board of Medical Physics and the American Board of Radiology.

Clinical Training

Incoming residents will participate in a two week orientation program which includes rotations with the attendings, nurses, CTSim, dosimetry, physics, and each of the four Bodine Cancer Center treatment machines. This will serve to familiarize them with the equipment, techniques, and procedures for the operation of the clinic. The residents will then have a three month orientation/rotation to learn basic physics clinical competencies.

After orientation, the resident will work closely with faculty and staff medical physicists responsible for clinical tasks. The resident will follow a clinical rotation schedule, which includes the training objectives of the various clinical rotations. The resident is given the Goals and Objectives at the start of each rotation. There is a chief mentor assigned for each rotation, who has expertise in the clinical procedures for that rotation. “Sub” mentors are assigned for specific tasks, and coordinate activities through the chief mentor. The chief mentor will have daily contact with the resident to ensure that there is good progression with the rotation objectives. The resident will discuss relevant task group reports with the chief mentor. Additional reading assignments may be given to strengthen theoretical understanding of various clinical procedures. The resident will keep a daily log documenting their participation in all clinical activities. This log will be reviewed and initialed by the chief mentor and the program director on a monthly basis, and progress will be discussed. The resident will be assigned a topic relevant to the rotation for an oral presentation, which is open to the entire department. The program director, the chief mentor and the resident will meet at the end the oral presentation to informally test the knowledge gained during the rotation. Each resident will be reviewed for performance and knowledge for each rotation by use of an evaluation form. Rotation Objectives and Review paperwork are in Attachment 10 and 11. These documents will become part of the resident's file.

Throughout the residency program, the residents maintain shared clinical responsibilities for all IMRT QA, HDR morning QA, completion of rotating monthly QA of the four Bodine LinAcs, attendance at four annuals for training and alternating responsibility of running annuals after training. In effect by completion of the program each resident will have completed a minimum of 8 annual calibrations, 32 monthly calibrations and 50 HDR morning QA checks. After completion of the Orientation, Dosimetry I and Physics I rotations and with the approval of the residency director the residents may have initial and weekly chart checking responsibilities.

Conference/Seminar Attendance

A variety of departmental and divisional conferences take place on a regular basis that will help the resident to develop an in-depth understanding of the clinical problems associated with the practice of medical physics in radiation oncology. Conferences and seminars include:

Departmental QA chart rounds twice a week
Anatomical site-specific oncology seminars with the radiation oncology residents and senior radiation oncologists once a week
Kimmel Cancer Center Grand Rounds once a week
Three named lectures in radiation oncology (the Simon Kramer Lecturer series), medical physics (the Suntharalingam Lecturer Series), and radiobiology (the Virginia Logan Lecturer Series) each year given by prominent international scholars/clinicians
Journal club once a month
Dosimetry presentation ”Lunch and Learn”, semi-annually
Radiation oncology resident presentation twice a month

There are also several opportunities to attend conferences outside of the department:

American Association of Physicists in Medicine Annual Meeting. The resident has opportunity to attend at least one annual meeting during the two-year period. The resident will be expected to give a report to physics staff about highlights of the meeting.
Other radiation oncology annual meetings: a resident whose abstract is accepted by ASTRO, ABS or similar annual meetings is provided travel support to present the paper by the Department
Delaware Valley Chapter of the AAPM meetings, on a quarterly basis.
Other local meetings.

Didactic Curriculum

Residents will be required to attend courses offered by the Medical Physics program unless there is demonstrated evidence of satisfactory completion of equivalent courses from a prior program. Determination of the need for additional didactic education is at the discretion of the Medical Physics Residency Program Committee. This didactic curriculum is given below. Detailed information and sample syllabi for the Physics and Radiobiology Lecture series are included in Attachment 12. Though the resident is auditing the courses, successful completion of each course will be documented with a passing grade for the midterm and final exams. Remedial medical physics education may also be achieved through a program of self-study with appropriate assessment by the Medical Physics Residency Program Committee. The medical physics resident who has not graduated from a program in medical physics will be required to complete:

Radiation Physics
Radiation Biology
Anatomy and Physiology (administered by the Radiological Sciences Department, Jefferson College of Allied Health)

Requirements for program completion

Demonstration of adequate medical physics education (equivalent to a graduate degree in medical physics).
Demonstration of clinical competency in all clinical training rotations including presentation on an assigned topic as documented in the rotation evaluation form, completed by the chief mentor and the program director.
Competency and shared responsibility of clinical physics duties such as initial calculation checks, chart checks, and weekly chart checks will be assigned to the resident after competency in these tasks has been demonstrated by completion of the first Dosimetry rotation, a Physics rotation and three staff members signing off that the resident is capable of independently managing these clinical duties.
Presentation of at least one medical physics presentation during each rotation block.
Attendance at the majority of the required clinical and medical physics seminars and conferences including medical physics seminars, dosimetry presentations, and morning chart rounds/QA conferences.
Satisfactory assessment of progress as determined by means of an oral examination at the end of each rotation, conducted by the Medical Physics Residency Program Committee.

A certificate of completion is given to the resident.