Medical Physics Residency Program (Therapy)

Program Overview

Ke Nie, PhD
Associate Professor
Program Director

The residency program takes place in Department of Radiation Oncology which is accredited by American College of Radiology (ACR). The program now has 5 full-time residents with the duration of 24-months. The resident training takes place under the close supervision of experienced board certified radiation oncology physicists in our state-of-the art academic treatment facility. Comprehensive training and experience is provided in the areas of radiation therapy physics, safety, radiation machine calibration, quality assurance, clinical dosimetry, treatment planning, treatment aid design and fabrication, radiation measurement, stereotactic body radiotherapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, low-/high dose rate brachytherapy and special procedures in current practice including but not limited to total body irradiation, and total skin electron therapy. In addition to clinical training, residents will be trained in other major aspects of a medical physicist’s duties including teaching, research, and administration. They will also be provided with professionalism and ethics training and guidance in the leadership qualities needed to both succeed and excel as a physicist in an academic and/or clinical medical facility.

Mission and Objectives

The objective of our medical physics residency program is to provide comprehensive and in-depth trainings to our residents in radiation therapy physics to a competency level sufficient to prepare them to practice radiation physics independently and professionally. The mission of the residency program furthers institutional mandates of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, which include education and leadership in the fight against cancer.

Irina Vergalasova, PhD, DABR Associate Professor
Associate Program Director

Curriculum

There are eight rotations in total during the 24-months clinical training:

Dosimetry Planning (6 months)
Linac Design and Radiation Detectors (3 months)
Brachytherapy & Brachy Radiation Safety (4 months)
Imaging (2 months with 1-month overlap of III and V, respectively)
Special Procedure (3 months)
Proton & Proton Radiation Safety (3 months)
External Beam Commissioning & Radiation Safety (3 months)
Elective (2 months)

Eligibility

Taoran Cui, PhD, DABR
Assistant Professor
Associate Program Director

Residents entering a medical physics residency educational program shall have a strong foundation in basic physics. This shall be demonstrated either by an undergraduate or graduate degree in physics, or by a degree in an engineering discipline or another of the physical sciences and with coursework that is the equivalent of a monor in physics (i.e., one that includes at least three upper-level undergraduate physics courses that would be required for a physics major).

In addition, residents must either

Have graduated from a CAMPEP-accredited MS or PhD graduate program, or
Possess a PhD in physics or related discipline and have completed a CAMPEP-accredited certificate program or
Possess a PhD in physics or related discipline and have satisfactorily completed courses equivalent to those in a CAMPEP-accredited program, as determined by the CAMPEP Graduate Education Program Review Committee (GEPRC).