Development of a residency program in radiation oncology physics: an inverse planning approach

In this report, we identify and discuss the implementation of, and the essential components of, a radia­tion oncology physics residency designed to produce knowledgeable and effective clinical physicists for today’s safety-conscious and collaborative work environment. Our approach is that of inverse planning, by now familiar to all radiation oncology physicists, in which objectives and constraints are identified prior to the design of the program. Our inverse planning objectives not only include those associated with traditional residencies (i.e., clinical physics knowledge and critical clinical skills), but also encompass those other attributes essential for success in a modern radiation therapy clinic. These attributes include formal training in management skills and leadership, teaching and communication skills, and knowledge of error management techniques and patient safety. The constraints in our optimization exercise are associated with the limited duration of a residency and the training resources available. Without compromising the knowledge and skills needed for clinical tasks, we have successfully applied the model to the University of Calgary’s two-year residency program. The program requires 3840 hours of overall commit­ment from the trainee, of which 7%–10% is spent in obtaining formal training in nontechnical “soft skills”.

Source: Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics - March 8, 2016 Category: Physics Source Type: research