Question: what is radiotherapy physicist

Rob Brass answered on 13 Jun 2016:

That’s a good question! I have to try and explain this to my aunties and uncles whenever I see them! I think my parents just about understand, either that or they’ve given up!

So my job has 2 bits to it really, I’ll explain them both briefly:

It is the law that a physicist has to be involved every time we give radiation to a patient, we’re involved in a couple of ways. We sometimes create the treatment plan – this tells the machine how much radiation to deliver, from what angle, with what size beam, etc. The person who creates the plan decides all this while trying to deliver a high dose to the tumour and a low dose to the healthy organs. If a physicist didnt plan the treatment (we also have specialist planners who arent physicists) then we might check it, this is a check that everything the planner has done is sensible and that they’re giving the right doses to everything. Lastly there is a ‘dose check’, we re-calculate the plan in a different system to check that it’s right, this is always done by a physicist. There are certain areas that we have a lot more involvement in too, like SRS (mentioned in my profile). We also perform measurements on the machines every day to make sure they’re giving out what we think they are, and other measurements in the evenings and at weekends to check various things.

The other part of my job is more to do with research and trying to improve our service. We do lots of projects to try and develop new ways of treating, either to get better outcomes for the patients or because its more efficient, etc. So physicists are responsible for pushing the department forward and making we’re right up to date!

Sorry its a long answer, but its hard to explain in a sentence or 2!