Clinical Environment

Nuvance Health has three clinical radiation oncology centers in the Mid-Hudson Valley region of New York State. The main, hospital-based Medical Physics Department is at Vassar Brothers Medical Center (VBMC) located in Poughkeepsie, NY. The affiliated centers are located southeast of Poughkeepsie in Carmel (Putnam Radiation Oncology Center, PROC) and northwest of Poughkeepsie in Kingston (Ulster Radiation Oncology Center, UROC). Carmel and Kingston, the two most widely separated centers, are approximately 55 miles apart.

The following equipment is deployed on our sites:

Raystation and onCentra are used for external beam and HDR treatment planning correspondingly.

The program supports two residents at a time, one at year 1 and the other at year 2. The staffing of all centers is managed centrally, and assignments of personnel to clinics remain relatively static. This strategy affords stability and continuity in the practice of each center, providing significant advantages, including built-in peer review, cross-coverage, and centralized administrative control.

The medical physics team consists of five full-time licensed medical physicists, one junior physicist, and two medical physics residents. One of the staff medical physicists, whose base office is at Vassar Brothers Medical Center, serves as Director of the Medical Physics Residency Program. The dosimetry section consists of five Certified Medical Dosimetrists (CMDs), including one Chief Dosimetrist. The therapists report to a radiation oncology manager.

Nuvance Health radiation oncology consists of an ongoing program of quality management and peer review to maintain consistent practices across the three centers. Both clinical and administrative meetings are routinely attended by staff from all centers using teleconferencing. The enterprise shares a single treatment planning database server for external beam treatment planning systems, and a single MOSAIQ database so all records are viewable from all sites at any time. The entire clinical practice is fully electronic within MOSAIQ EMR. Physics documents and other machine-related records have migrated to shared electronic storage.

The goal of the Nuvance Health Medical Physics Residency Program in therapeutic radiological physics is to prepare new medical physics graduates to independently perform the diverse duties of a radiation oncology physicist in a typical practice.

We believe the individuals who choose clinical medical physics as their profession must have:

• Strong basic medical skills
• Sound clinical judgment, including the ability to recognize the edges of their own competencies
• Diverse expertise in various procedures
• Developed responsibility and independence to serve as a source of expertise in a healthcare organization
• A strong professional work ethic
• Soft skills

Therefore, the program’s teaching objectives include:

• Understanding the role of radiation oncology in healthcare
• Defining the role of the professional medical physicist in radiation oncology
• Acquiring specific knowledge and skills required to perform the medical physicist’s work in clinical procedures typical for radiation oncology
• Developing a sense of professional identity and professionalism in their work, including soft skills
• Reinforcing habits of critical thinking, problem recognition, problem solving and attention to detail
• Mastering the principles of the safe use of radiation in medicine
• Dissecting issues of apprehension or harm to patients arising through error or omission, and the critical role of the medical physicist in ensuring patient safety
• Learning skills required to accept, commission, and monitor performance of the major equipment used in radiation oncology
• Selecting and using correct instrumentation to make clinically significant radiation measurements
• Preparing residents for ABR certification exams, and enabling them to distinguish themselves as outstanding candidates for future employment
• Providing materials for self-study
• Download self-study materials.

Residents will be examined on 16 core competencies. They will be expected to demonstrate mastery of at least 8 of the 16 for which mastery is required, and to be at least conversant in the others. Mastery is defined as the ability to independently perform the work completely and accurately in a timely fashion. Residents will be judged to be conversant if they can clearly communicate the important concepts and cite the relevant source of authority for an area of competence, even if they have not yet demonstrated the ability to perform the work independently.

Mastery in any competency is judged by a combination of:

1. Performance evaluations (P) by clinical supervisors during rotation, meaning direct observation of each task as it is being performed
2. A written report created by the resident
3. Performance of a skill and/or in an oral exam (O). The oral exam is structured similarly to the ABR, with a debrief of the examiners and feedback to the resident.

The core competencies are:

• Clinical patient management
• External beam delivery
• External beam treatment planning
• Brachytherapy commissioning and QA
• Brachytherapy treatment planning
• Brachytherapy delivery
• Instrumentation and dosimetry protocols
• Patient specific physics services
• Information systems/EMR
• Administrative and professional responsibilities
• Clinical program management
• Special procedures treatment planning
• Special procedures delivery
• Radiation safety and regulatory

• Residency applicants will be screened according to predefined criteria to ensure that selection is based on applicant preparedness, ability, aptitude, academic credentials, communication skills and personal qualities such as motivation and integrity.
• Applications are accepted only through the Medical Physics Residency Application Program (MP-RAP)
• We participate in the MedPhys Match program by National Matching Services, Inc.
• Program start date: June 17
• Number of positions: 1
• Application deadline: December 28

Nuvance Health Residency Interviews

• Phone interviews take place around mid to late January. Several candidates are offered on-site interviews.
• The residency accepts only applicants who completed a CAMPEP-accredited graduate program or a certificate program. Since Vassar Brothers Medical Center is a community practice, we are not able to and do not intend to offer remedial coursework in adjunct to the residency.

Salary and Benefits

• Residents are regular full-time employees of Nuvance Health with corresponding benefits.
• Residents are paid $50,000 annually, with possible annual salary increase.