Dosimetrist- Radiation Oncology

Affiliate Name: Brigham & Women's Hospital
Job Category: Allied Health
Department: BWH RADIATION ONCOLOGY
Shift: Days
Hours/Week: 40
Job Type: Regular
Employment Type: Full TimeResponsibilities:
Medical dosimetrists are trained to work as team members in managing cancer patients going through radiation treatments. They are trained in all areas of basic medical physics with special emphasis in treatment planning. The primary role is to understand and integrate the clinical information specified by the radiation oncologist for each patient. They then utilize departmental resources to design optimal treatment strategies and to ensure that such treatments are properly delivered. They work closely with physicists, physicians, therapists, nurses and engineers.A.Treatment Planning
The routine treatment planning activities are usually carried out by medical dosimetrists. Irradiation modalities may includes both external and brachytherapy sources. The tasks include:
1. Collection and analysis of patient data; interaction with radiation oncologists to define target volumes and critical structures.
2. Design of an optimal approach and calculation of the corresponding dose distributions for the treatment.
3. Design of immobilization device(s) or other accessories to ensure reproducibility of the treatments and conformation to the plan and/or the simulation.
4. Design of custom shielding blocks, compensators and other beam modifying devices to optimize dose distributions. When necessary, they also may fabricate these devices.
5. Radiation dosage calculation and documentation of radiation beam output according to the plan and the physician's description.
6. Implementation of the treatment plan in the clinic.
7. Verification of the doses delivered to the patient. When necessary, the dosimetrists may be required to perform dose measurements on a patient or in a physical object simulating the patient and interpret the results.
8. Besides planning for brachytherapy, dosimetrists may also be required to assist in the loading and removal of sources from patients.
9. Dosimetrists may need to assist in all aspects of radiation safety, including ordering sources, inventory control and maintain documentation to meet regulatory requirements.B. Quality Assurance of Patient Treatments
1. Routinely, dosimetrists check all the calculations performed by the therapists.
2. Once a week, dosimetrists check current treatment charts to verify that the treatment plan and the physics-related data are used and recorded properly by the therapists.
3. Once a week, dosimetrists attend New patient conference General Chart Rounds to review selected cases.C. Participation in Special Treatments
When a specific treatment is complicated, they may have to participate and monitor these treatment deliveries. Dosimetrists maybe trained to participate in special treatment techniques. These may include stereotactic irradiation, high dose rate brachytherapy, intravascular irradiation and MRI guided prostate implants.D. Radiation dose measurements and physical quality assurance
They are knowledgeable in the field of basic radiation measurements as they will use various dosimetric equipments to determine the radiation dose to the patient on site. They will also participate in routine physical quality assurance and machine data acquisition program.E. Teaching
Dosimetrists participate and assist in the teaching programs covering the Therapist training program, occassionally the resident training program, and the physics post doctoral training programF. Other duties as assigned.
REQUIREMENTS
Minimum formal education is a Bachelor's degree. Preferably, the area of concentration in college is science, mathematics, or engineering. Ideally, the candidate should have a Bachelors degree in Radiological Sciences with good computer programming experience. Alternatively, experienced registered Radiation Therapists with an Associate Degree may also be considered.However, preference will be given to those who have taken college level courses in anatomy & physiology, clinical oncology, atomic & nuclear physics, radiation protection, diagnostic physics & nuclear medicine techniques, radiation therapy physics, computer programming, calculus and analytic geometry, linear algebra & vector analysis, statistics, basic electronics.Several months of clinical rotation or clinical experience are required. Registered radiation therapists with several years of experience in treatment or simulation is considered sufficient for entry positions.