Medical Physics

The Medical Physics Department is responsible for Medical Physics radiotherapy support at two sites, Liverpool Cancer Therapy Centre & Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centre, and has clinical medical physicists based at both sites providing a consistent and quality service.

Linking of the group is facilitated by video conferencing facilities enabling regular group meetings for service co-ordination and staff education.

The department has an active research group incorporating clinical physicists, students and a number of full time research physicists. This group works to improve radiation oncology treatments for future patients worldwide as well as our current patients, collaborating with The University of Sydney, The University of Wollongong and a number of multidisciplinary groups.

Medical Physicist Role

A qualified Medical Physicist is someone who has acquired the knowledge skills, and judgment to work with applications of radiation (low and high energy x-rays, electrons and charged particles) for treatment and/or diagnosis. This involves the equipment associated with the production of radiation, the use, measurement and evaluation of the radiation and any medical health physics associated with this use of radiation.

Responsibilities of a medical physicist in radiation oncology Careers

Technical management of all equipment used for radiation therapy. This includes commissioning of new equipment installations, calibration, designing quality assurance programs and overseeing maintenance. The quality assurance programs ensure that the equipment always operates as designed, and that patients receive accurate and safe treatment. Much of this work must comply with exacting international recommendations and codes of safe practice.
The safe use of radiation in the hospital. This involves ensuring that all legal requirements designed to protect the public, staff and patients are met. For example this includes building design for new equipment installations and ensuring that safe work practices are followed.
Providing support for the radiotherapy treatment planning process. Treatment planning is the complex process used to design a customised radiation treatment plan for each patient. The physics group is responsible for computing systems and their use in treatment planning, and provides advice to medical and radiation therapist staff as required. In some cases, they make measurements to check the dose received by patients during treatment.
Researching improved methods for planning and delivering radiation treatment. This research is often done collaboratively with medical staff and other health professional staff in this cancer centre, as well as with other cancer centres. This research is presented at conferences or published in international medical physics journals.
Teaching others. Teaching is carried out for medical physics registrars, radiation oncology registrars (doctors) and radiation therapy students. This may be as a component to a degree or advanced training, or for continuing education.

Cancer Service Equipment

The Medical Physics department supports and uses the following equipment.

Therapy Equipment	Liverpool Cancer Therapy Centre Equipment	Macarthur Cancer Therapy Centre Equipment
Linacs	3 Elekta with Agility MLC, 1 Accuray TomoTherapy	3 Elekta Versa
Treatment Planning System/s	RaySearch RayStation, Philips Pinnacle SmartEnterprise, Nucletron Oncentra	RaySearch RayStation, Philips Pinnacle SmartEnterprise
CT Scanner	Philips Big Bore	Philips Big Bore
MRI	Siemens Magnetom 3T Skyra
Brachytherapy	Nucletron HDR
Orthovoltage	XStrahl 220 kV	XStrahl 220 kV

Therapy Equipment
	Wellhoefer Blue water tank	Wellhoefer Blue water tank
	IMRTMatrixx	IMRTMatrixx
	Sun Nuclear ArcCheck	Sun Nuclear ArcCheck
	DQA3	DQA3
	Profiler	Profiler
	CIRS IMRT phantom	CIRS IMRT phantom
	RIT s/w	RIT s/w
	TLD system	TLD system

Research

Our research is co-ordinated through the umbrella research organisation for the Health District, that is the Ingham Institute.

Please go the the Medical Physics page at the Ingham Institute site for more information.

Physics Registrar Training

The department currently trains 4 medical physics registrars who are enrolled in the ACPSEM Training, Education, Accreditation Program (TEAP).

Additional training positions may be available subject to department staffing profile and available vacancies, as varies from time to time.

Professional Development

The Cancer Service offers many opportunities for developing as a professional.

Staff are supported and encouraged to undertake research and publish their work. Support takes the form of:-

protected time for research projects
funding availability to present work at local & international conferences
provision of research tools & resources

Opportunities also are made available for attendance at training courses on equipment and new technologies or techniques