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<title>[Training Tuesday] - Weekly thread for questions about grad school, residency, and general career topics 06/01/2021</title>
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<h1>[Training Tuesday] - Weekly thread for questions about grad school, residency, and general career topics 06/01/2021</h1>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Examples:</h2>
<ul>
<li>"I majored in Surf Science and Technology in undergrad, is Medical Physics right for me?"</li>
<li>"I can't decide between Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics..."</li>
<li>"Do Medical Physicists get free CT scans for life?"</li>
<li>"Masters vs. PhD"</li>
<li>"How do I prepare for Residency interviews?"</li>
</ul>
<h2>Comments:</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p>I’m within a year and a half of finishing my Nuclear Engineering degree at UTK, and the user honestly doesn’t know where to start (as awful as that sounds) in order to get to where they wanna go. What steps should they take in order to become a medical physicist? They know it’s very broad but they need some help to point them in the right direction!!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The individual is starting their last year of residency and wondering when it is appropriate to start seriously applying for jobs. They know what area they would like to end up in geographically post-residency and they want to be very proactive to increase the chances of winding up there.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: December. (If the individual is on a conventional schedule when residency starts in July)</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The user is currently a grade 12 student planning to study medical physics at Ryerson. They are asking if there are any straightforward career pathways in this field and what steps they would have to take.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: Honestly, there isn't really anything in this field that warrants them hitching their cart so specifically to a medical physics degree at this early stage of their education/career. They effectively need a PhD to get a residency (in Canada), so grad school is when they can decide to specialize in medical physics. If they like physics, they can take a physics or engineering physics degree and they'll have more options open.</p>
<p>Response 2: I'd also encourage them to look into health physics; they'd be a great candidate and there are less barriers to entry. They can also do medical health physics so they're still in a healthcare setting. Of course though, they perform very different jobs but it's just an option to consider.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The individual is making a career change and came across Medical Physics. They have a Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering and have spent the last 10 years of their life working as a nuclear operator. They obtained their senior reactor operating license from the USNRC in 2014 and then the company board decided to decommission the plant in 2016. They've been supporting the decommissioning but they need to start thinking about the next phase of their life. They know they want to move into healthcare because the industry is more stable than nuclear power and they want to be able to make a difference in someone's life rather than help increase a corporation's profit margin.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They've just finished with general pre-health prerequisites and are currently studying for the GRE. They were planning to learn Python after that and are also volunteering with the American Red Cross.</p>
<p>Response 2: They were really set on Medical Physics until they looked at the local residency program. Last year they had 90 applicants and only admitted 1. Assuming they get into and successfully complete the Master's program, they want to know how to make themselves stand out against 89+ other applicants. They also want to know if there are other jobs out there if they can't get a residency.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They'd encourage them to look into health physics; they'd be a great candidate and there are less barriers to entry. They can also do medical health physics so they're still in a healthcare setting. Of course though, they perform very different jobs but it's just an option to consider.</p>
<p>Response 2: The paths are slightly different for therapy physics, imaging physics, and nuclear medicine physics so it's worth trying to understand which they're interested in and what that means for them. There are related fields they can pivot to, and certainly the related medical industries are an option, but they can't speak for how much the master's degree contributes towards picking those up.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The user is wondering if it's possible to go for a CAMPEP accredited PhD program in the USA or Canada after getting a non-CAMPEP accredited MSc from another country.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: What’s important to understand about the whole CAMPEP path is that it’s the courses that make the certification, not the program status itself. Going through a “CAMPEP PhD program” means nothing if they don’t also take the CAMPEP courses from the program. So, they will need to retake all of their medical physics courses from a CAMPEP program for it to count. They don’t believe they can get around it.</p>
<p>Response 2: They think they will need to take the courses necessary to pass the qualifying exam to be a PhD student. They don’t think they can be accepted as a PhD student right off the bat. They know someone who got their MS from a CAMPEP program, transferred to a different CAMPEP program for their PhD, and still had to take most of that program's courses in order to sit for the qualifying exam.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They never got the full story, but they know the MS program the person came from is highly regarded in the field. They think it had to do with not wanting to set a precedent where students could just transfer to a more prestigious program (with more funding) to get their PhD without taking the courses that make students from that program have the status in the field that they have. They won’t say they necessarily agree with that stance, but they can see why they’d make it.</p>
<p>Response 2: They think it's more reasonable for someone like them to go for the MSc first, then the PhD. If they have to do 75% of an MS to get to the PhD, they might as well take the MS on the way.</p>
<p>Response 3: They suggest talking to the program coordinator to figure out the deal. They think they’re going to have to take the 20+ credits of core CAMPEP courses no matter what program or path they end up in.</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The individual is on their first year of residency and wants to know the prospects of automation on radiotherapy and tps. They are concerned if they will be left without a job.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They don’t see themselves losing their job because of automation. Automation just enables them to focus on more important tasks. They also mention that there are always new types of automation that come up when time is freed up elsewhere. They believe even good automated services require QA and regular verification, and they let them focus more time and energy on higher priority work.</p>
<p>Response 2: They ask what types of automation the individual is seeing in their clinic that concern them, and mention that they work with several types of automation in their clinic.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The user wants to know the highest residency placement rates for masters programs. They have been looking at CAMPEP data from 2018 and would like to see if it has changed in the last 2.5 years.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: Placement statistics are required to be publicly posted on the programs' websites. They suggest going to each program's website and checking the statistics for the last several years. They recommend keeping a spreadsheet to track and calculate the data.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The individual wants to know what masters or PhD programs typically look for in an undergrad applicant. They ask about the minimum GPA, the importance of research and shadowing, and the relevance of the GRE.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They think the GPA minimum will be specific to the school, and in general, programs are looking for well-rounded applicants who show interest in medical physics. They mention that research related to medical physics and/or shadowing are certainly pluses since they demonstrate interest. They also note that most programs don't require the physics GRE and the overall GRE is evaluated basically the same as the GPA - it's one piece of a larger picture of the applicant's resume/CV.</p>
<p>Response 2: They suggest checking the minimum requirements or average statistics of each program on their respective websites.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>The user is a first-year student currently on clinical placement in the UK. They don't see themselves living/working in this country for more than a year or two after qualifying as the NHS pay isn't good enough and they don't want to stay in England. They want to know which countries they should be looking at for their future career and how difficult it would be to transfer.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Response 1: They mention that the individual can look more into the CAMPEP process, but they are likely at least 4 years away from a clinical job in the US. They also note that the vast majority of clinical positions in the US and Canada will require certification that is not easy to get from international qualifications. They suggest considering coming over as a postdoc and completing a CAMPEP certificate program plus a residency to qualify for most clinical jobs. They provide campep.org for the list of accredited programs and theabr.org for information on professional certification.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Original URL: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/nprb6s/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/">https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/nprb6s/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/</a></p>
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