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?"

Hello fellow seniors, I am an undergrad student and I am working on the topic 'Hippocamous Segmentation using Deep Learning methods' as my final year project. I have a question regarding which method should I work with. Which one would be better to work with for brain segmentation task , U-net or ResNet. You can also tell me some other methods if possible . My idea is to create a segmentation model from scratch , calculate it's Dice Score and apply transfer learning onto my own model to increase accuracy. Will it be feasible ? ( I am good at coding and have been working with Pytorch for quite a while now). Please , any insights will be helpful.

Hello,

I'm a fairly new medical physicist in the field and I'm pretty confused about the definitions of absolute and reference dosimetry (and what is defined as an "absolute dosimeter").

I have been reading through TRS 398 and I couldn't find a satisfying answer. When browsing the web I found contradictory defintions that didn't help either.

What are the correct defintions of absolute and reference dosimetry and what is a good source to read about those?

Thanks

Is calculating a brachy bunker door the same as calculation of your walls?. Say we just consider lead for door instead of concrete. Sample calc is greatly appreciated

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping to get an opinion on sharing the workspace in our CT room when not in use. I’ve tried to do a literature review on the effects of residual radiation post scan, but I didn’t get very far in answering my question.

I work in veterinary medicine. My hospital built a new location, but did not plan out where I am going to do my ultrasounds. We utilize CT far less than ultrasound and standard radiography, *maybe * 5 CTs per week, while several weeks never in use. I am wondering if I could use this space to do my ultrasounds when not in use or if this would be too risky and increase any radiation exposure.

As a side note if you made it this far, it seems like medical physics is widely under utilized in veterinary medicine. I have been researching through this sub group and saw a few people visit the teaching hospitals. I am working towards finishing my undergrad in physics with hopes to apply for a med physics program. If anyone is willing to chat with me in a PM I’d really appreciate the ability to talk to someone on what medical physics really is and your opinions on the utilization in veterinary medicine. A dream I have is bringing what I learn into the veterinary space, but worry my ideas may be unrealistic based in nativity of the field. I’m also getting kind of old and have been discouraged by some close friends, family, and coworkers to look into such a big program.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Kristen

Which technology do you utilize to acquire your annual profiles? Leave comments why your method is great or flawed.

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Do people use the Dicom query retrieve import filter option for aria? I’ve never worked at a site that uses it, usually only ever done push to Va_transfer and import from there.

Edit: besides imaging on the machines, more pacs/sim

I’m in England at year 11 and I am yet to pick A levels, I want to do medical physics and I think that i should take GCSE maths and physics so I can have a good chance at getting a job. Should i take another A level that would help me more or should I just take music or something? And should I go to a university or straight to a job? Any advice is appreciated because i’m at a difficult decision in terms of 6th form and universities. Thank you.

Hi does anyone here have any information on how we can export the 3D dose distribution or any other dose related information in a format other than .bdf and .frm from Delta4 phantom (specially in the case of tomotherapy QA)? any comments would be helpful.

What system is used in your center to irradiate hemoderivatives?

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I'm a supporter of this. My only concern is that it may be a barrier to some grad students. Hopefully PIs are funding their students to submit abstracts. Curious to know what others think

Hello!

I’m currently pursuing a PhD in physics (with a masters in Medical Physics) at a university without an affiliated hospital, which presents challenges in accessing clinical data for research. While I’m aware of resources like The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA), it seems extensively utilized. We have access to Eclipse version 14 and the one of latest version of Monaco (don’t remember the exact version).

I’m seeking advice on research topics that can be pursued without direct clinical data access. I’m particularly interested in areas like treatment planning optimization, machine learning applications.

Any suggestions or guidance on potential research directions or alternative data sources would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your insights!

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=868947712117280&set=a.375574554787934

TB 4.1 is new to my site. If you haven't had the pleasure of interacting with this version, it has a major quirk in that it requires every beam to utilize "jaw tracking". This is supposed to ensure that a jaw is within a set distance, called the jaw setback, specified in Sys admin on the machine. Unfortunately, it's not working that way for me.

I'm trying to design a simple picket fence test and can't generate a plan that the machine will accept according to the rules Varian has provided. Yes, I have called Varian and gone over the plan with them.

Has anyone had success creating a picket fence test for Truebeam version 4.0 and above?

We're increasing our number of breath hold SBRTs (on truebeam), and when trying to protocolize it I've really stressed avoiding re-learning the breathing motion once we've aligned using CBCT.

This is based on anecdotal experience of watching patients profoundly change their breathing habits over the course of a treatment, so I'm afraid that anytime we re-learn we might be setting a completely new baseline, which thus changes the relative gating window.

On the new RPM/RGSC cameras, however, they force a re-learn with any table shift of over 3 cm which means if you have any kind of lateral iso, you're re-learning immediately a centered-couch CBCT which in my mind invalidates the circumstances under which you've just done your matching.

So, what's your strategy?

What kind of radiation do you use for that: electrons, superficial X-rays, HDR brachytherapy?

Do you use shield under the eyelid?

Among the radiotherapy departments that use electrons, I think very few has 4 MeV (apparently the standard energies are 6 MeV and higher), but I think 4 MeV is better for skin cancers (BCC and SCC), at least theoretically, because these tumors are usually not deeper than 5 mm. Are there any particular issues or disadvantages of 4 MeV that explain this low popularity?

Maybe the thickness and density of the bolus become more critical with lower energy? Is it just that 6 MeV are seen as more versatile or valid for a higher range of depths?

Hi everyone,

Has anyone worked or is currently working in a configuration where both systems are connected? Plans created in Eclipse and delivered with Versa? Are all machine functions operational in this setup? Somebody told me that VMAT plans have issues and CBCT match isn’t available.

What is the volume of manual work required to transfer the plan to the accelerator?

Thanks in advance.

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 was just going through the ABR website and found that international candidates can be eligible for ABR through an alternate pathway where if they have two years experience working in their country of study and they work under an ABR certified medical physicist for one year and submit a form provided. Are any of you aware of any places where they provide such training for physicists?

Should I not be surprised if I don’t land one?

Does anyone know if you can change the thresholds in MPC?

Hello, I am looking for a Monte Carlo code that would allow me to model neutron production due to 10 MV photons in a lead shield. I have tried to access MCNP6.3 but have not received a response so far, so I am searching for an alternative. Any help is appreciated.

I'm working on converting Elekta EPID images from CMYK JPEG format to DICOM using Python. Currently experiencing some technical challenges with the conversion process.

My questions:

1. Has anyone successfully implemented a conversion workflow from Elekta EPID CMYK JPEGs to DICOM format? If so, would you be willing to share your approach or any potential pitfalls to avoid?
2. Also, I want to ensure this conversion process complies with Elekta's user agreement. Does anyone have experience or insights regarding the compliance aspects of such image format conversions?

Technical Context:

• Source: Elekta EPID images in CMYK JPEG format
• Target: DICOM format
• Current approach: Using Python with pydicom and PIL libraries
• Main challenges:
  • Maintaining image quality and calibration information
  • Unable to handle 16 bit JPEG image

Any guidance, especially from those who have tackled similar conversions in a clinical setting, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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?"

This came up clinically and reasonable minds are disagreeing.

We’re re-treating conventional fractionation 2 Gy/fx, 35 fx to HN. Prev tx was also 2 Gy/fx, 35 fx to HN.

Dosi suggested we need not do any EQD2 calculations since both courses were 2Gy/fx. Physics has one person agreeing with dosi, but another disagrees. The disagreeing physicist says that even though the Rx is 2 Gy/fx, the OARs are all almost certainly receiving less than 2Gy/fx, and therefore EQD2 calculations are valid. We use ClearCheck, so EQD2 calcs are easy and fast to do. But the question is whether we should or should not use EQD2 to evaluate the OAR constraints even though the plans are 2 Gy/fx?