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2022-09-06_11-00-11_x77lsq_cg.html
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<title>[Training Tuesday] - Weekly thread for questions about grad school, residency, and general career topics 09/06/2022</title>
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<h1>[Training Tuesday] - Weekly thread for questions about grad school, residency, and general career topics 09/06/2022</h1>
<p>This is the place to ask questions about graduate school, training programs, or general basic career topics. If you are just learning about the field and want to know if it is something you should explore, this thread is probably the correct place for those first few questions on your mind.</p>
<h2>Examples:</h2>
<ul>
<li>"I majored in Surf Science and Technology in undergrad, is Medical Physics right for me?"</li>
<li>"I can't decide between Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics..."</li>
<li>"Do Medical Physicists get free CT scans for life?"</li>
<li>"Masters vs. PhD"</li>
<li>"How do I prepare for Residency interviews?"</li>
</ul>
<h2>Comments:</h2>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Comment 1: What preprinting archives do people usually use? Is arxiv.org popular?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Comment 2: Hello there! New to Reddit but wanted to get some perspective on applying to therapy residences with a CAMPEP-accredited BME PhD. Even though my doctoral work has been clinical, involving MRI-guided surgery, with 7+ publications, I haven't touched RadOnc research! And I am worried about demonstrating my passion to be a therapy MP. Most successful residency candidates appear to be MSc students with highly focused RT involvement or PhD students who have RT-related research projects. Now I am spending a ton of time shadowing, but I know it's not equivalent to RadOnc research or experience.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 1: Don’t sweat it. My PhD didn’t even touch radiation oncology, and I matched with my dream rad onc residency. My opinion is that you’ll be a more well-rounded applicant, and you’ll be able to add insights from your interdisciplinary work. Science improves when we have diverse viewpoints!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Comment 3: Hey everyone! Undergrad here. I had questions regarding 1) match and residencies. I’ve been reading that more and more programs opt out of the match and the residency is a more traditional interview process now? Is this true? I assume you can attempt to match and if you fail still apply for residencies OUTSIDE of the match, correct?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 2: 1) You can go to the MedPhys match website and look at the statistics. The number of "matching" applicants has actually increased since the inception of MedPhys match. This is because while some programs drop the match, other new programs enter the match. In general, you will have three types of programs offering "non-match" residency spots. Bullets 1 and 2 typically occur pre-match day. 1. Top tier programs. These programs are very desirable and can easily lock up a resident before the match. It would be unlikely these spots would be open after the match. These programs do not enter the match because it is honestly a waste of their time. This is a big issue with the match. 2. Lower tier programs that are not desirable may offer residency positions outside the match in an attempt to lock up a resident through the guarantee of a residency. Typically this happens pre-match, but these spots can be open post-match as well. 3. Any program that gets unlucky and does not match a candidate. These are the spots that will be open post-match, but you will be fighting for them. One final note - if you are well qualified (good grad school, have experience, etc etc), you will almost certainly get a residency. 2) You will no have issues moving state to state if you have board certification and keep up with your maintenance of certification. Some states (TX, NY, FL, HI?) require a state license to "practice" medical physics. Many other states will require some type of registration with their department of radiation safety. You will generally need to be added as an authorized medical physicist (therapy) if you are doing things like gamma knife, brachy, etc. But this is all mainly just paperwork. Many people will have residency in one state, get a job in a different state, and then in a few years when the "perfect job in the perfect location" opens, will move again.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 3: I see, thanks for the response! So it sounds like it’s always in your best interest to try and match then, correct? As in you can still apply for any other non-match residency if you DONT match?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 4: Check out the rules for the match: <a href="https://natmatch.com/medphys/rules.html">https://natmatch.com/medphys/rules.html</a> If you click on the applicant agreement, you get a PDF. Points #5 and #6 are most important. Basically, if an applicant remains in the match, they cannot accept a position from a participating program prior to the match result release. HOWEVER, an applicant in the match program is free to interview with and accept an offer from a non-participating program provided the applicant withdraws from the match prior to submission of your rank list. So you can interview both inside and outside the match, and if you get an offer from a non-participating program, you can accept it and just withdraw from the match. It is always in the applicant's best interest to enter a CAMPEP accredited residency, whether in the match or not.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 5: I see, thanks so much! Although, I don’t think I understand the purpose of the match if some are and some aren’t CAMPEP, and some outside of the match are and aren’t campep…</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 6: The match was originally implemented to "even the playing field" and get rid of "gentleman agreements." What I mean by this is that some residencies would start interviewing people super early and then say "Here is your offer, you have 48 hours to accept or we will give it to someone else." Since there were more applicants than programs, many applicants would accept the first offer they got just so that they were sure they would have a residency spot. This also put programs that were in less desirable locations (or slower to interview people) at a disadvantage. You have seen the root of the problem, which is that programs do not need to be in the match. In the opinion of many, the match should be used either by everyone or should not be used at all. Allowing a pool of programs in the match and a pool of non-match programs is not a sustainable model. CAMPEP has nothing to do with the match, you just want to make sure your program is CAMPEP accredited so that you will be eligible for your boards.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 7: Ahh alright that makes sense. Thank you sir</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Comment 4: Hey guys, I'm currently studying physics as an undergrad in Australia and am considering going on to study medical physics. If I were to do so, would I need a PhD in order to do research in this field or would the master's just suffice?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 8: I can vouch that it seems to be very similar US as it is here in Aus, though if you're particularly interested in research focused career rather than clinical a phD might be more advantageous. However, plenty of just masters medical physicists do research along with their clinical work.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 9: thanks for this response! would you say that most medical physicists with a PhD spend more time researching and less time doing clinical work? Additionally, is it common for people to start work with just a master's and go back and get a PhD later if they want one?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 10: I'd say in general yes, with PhD holders having better ability to publish/be head researcher for a given paper. But you can certainly do research with only the masters. Edit: and just to clarify, research is not the majority of a medical physicists time, PhD or not (unless you're an academic researcher, which is not common). As for the latter, yes that is very common: either going back to do a PhD full time (quite often in an attempt to improve job opportunities, though whether this makes a huge difference is a matter for debate) or sometimes part-time after starting clinical work and being TEAP certified.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 11: Based in the US, so your mileage may vary. Here it's pretty common for MS (staff-level) physicists to do research on the side, especially at academic institutions. They're mainly focused on small projects with direct clinical applications since they have to balance it with clinical duties. That said, it's PhD (faculty) that tend to do significant research and be primary investigators heading labs. Whether or not they have protected research time (ie time that's not touched by clinical duties so they can dedicate to research) is institution-dependent.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Response 12: I’m an undergrad in the US so I sadly can’t answer for Australia, but I do know lots of people in this sub in the US at least suffice with just an MS and then go on to residency and their career (maybe that’s different in Aus though?)</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Original URL: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/x77lsq/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/">https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/x77lsq/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/</a></p>
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