As a board certified practicing medical physicist I was disappointed with Gregory Davis’s remarks regarding the changing requirements to practice in my field. His assertion that the bar is being raised in order to limit practitioner numbers and thereby raise salaries for current practitioners is farfetched. The bar is being raised to bring the training of medical physicists in line with that of other practitioners represented by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Medical physicists are one of the few nonphysician groups represented.
When I finished a medical physics graduate program accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Educational Programs in the early 1990s, I was considered a medical physicist, but I was in no position to function independently in a clinical environment. I was fortunate to work in a consulting group with a mentor who made the time and had the patience to properly train me while providing me with employment. The responsibilities of the clinical medical physicist in a therapy setting include ensuring the absolute calibration of a linear accelerator capable of delivering lethal amounts of radiation, consulting with radiation oncologists on the development of optimal treatment plans, and measuring the equipment’s radiation characteristics for sophisticated computerized modeling to generate accurate representations of delivered dose. In a nutshell, medical physicists are solely responsible for the safe and optimal use of the equipment and the accurate and precise delivery of the prescribed amount of radiation to the patient. Davis’s assertion that a physics degree is versatile is correct; however, it alone is not sufficient to prepare a person for clinical responsibilities.
As to Davis’s claim that there is no evidence of threats to public safety, several newspaper articles by Walt Bogdanich that have appeared in the New York Times this year tell a different story about the consequences of medical physicists’ errors. 1 In my opinion, the best way to minimize those errors is to standardize the education and training of medical physicists: Uniform graduate education, residency, and board-certification requirements will help ensure a candidate’s competence for independent practice. Radiation oncologists, medical doctors who define the volume to be treated and prescribe the quantity of radiation to be delivered, are already expected to meet those requirements.
If I or a family member needed radiation therapy, I would want a board-certified medical physicist to review the treatment plans and calculations and to calibrate the equipment. The medical physicist is the sole individual in the clinic to attest to accurate and precise delivery of radiation treatments.
For more information see the position statement at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine website, http://www.aapm.org/publicgeneral/StatementBeforeCongress.asp.
