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Program with Abstracts

Proffered Session: Cross-Canada Residency Highlights​ | Sunalta ABC

January 30, 2025 from 1:30pm MDT to 2:30pm MDT

Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 1
University of Calgary Physics Residency Program: Embracing Innovation and Clinical Development While Preparing Residents for Success in the Clinic

Andrea McNiven
Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre and University of Calgary

The residency program at University of Calgary aims to develop medical physicists with strong fundamentals who are well equipped to transition to working as medical physicists, equipped with knowledge, skills and attitudes that will enable them to collaborate with multi-disciplinary colleagues delivery high quality radiation therapy and safely implement new technology or techniques. This includes covering the fundamentals (CAMPEP program standards for curriculum) while also trying to expand the curriculum to include competencies related to newer technologies and techniques.  Each rotation is designed to make this achievable.

Rotation highlights include: 1) Innovative rotations such as MR Simulation and MR-guided radiotherapy which also address concepts related to on-line adaptive radiotherapy and physicists’ role in that process. 2) Integration of clinical projects for each rotation, where residents are required to initiate, lead and complete the project. 3) Clinical service components are integrated into nearly every rotation, allowing residents to progress from didactic learning to shadowing and eventually to independent practice. 4) Consolidation of skills in a final transition to practice rotation. Under the support of certified medical physicists, the residents are expected to complete assigned clinical duties, and also be first responder to clinical scenarios or consults.  These program components provide residents opportunities to practice applying their skills and knowledge in a clinical environment throughout the duration of their training, while also providing opportunities to develop professional competencies, including time management, collaboration, change management and more.

Internal program review and feedback has also driven recent program changes. First, an improved treatment planning rotation was implemented after resident assessments revealed gaps in fundamental treatment planning concepts, prompting a redesign of the rotation and timing of it during their residency. Additionally, identified need to provide more formal feedback to residents, so newly designed resident assessment forms have been developed and implemented.


Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 2
Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont’s Residency Experience

Caroline Duchesne
Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont - CIUSSS de l'Est-de-l'Île-de-Montréal

The residency program in Quebec operates differently from those in other provinces. All hospitals are satellite sites of the McGill University Health Centre program with close collaboration between all centres and all residents across the province. Quebec offers full-time positions, unlike other provinces where resident or assistant physicist roles may be available.  

At HMR, we offer a well-structured approach to each rotation, with a defined monthly schedule and specific tasks assigned to both the resident and designated physicist. A physicist site coordinator, supported by a team of 3-4 physicists, oversees the resident’s progress and is responsible for implementing the curriculum. Meetings between the site coordinator and McGill ensure that the program runs smoothly.  

Teaching is a collaborative effort, with the entire physics team participating on a voluntary basis, based on individual expertise and comfort level with teaching. This provides the resident with exposure to different teaching styles and allows them to build a rapport with the entire team. That said, it also helps distribute the workload amongst the physicists. There are weekly check-in sessions to evaluate their progression and understanding of the material. We prioritize creating a safe and open environment, where residents feel comfortable asking questions or for assistance when handling certain tasks. To help residents prepare for the final rotation exams, we conduct two to three in-house preparatory exams with independent physicists, not involved in the program. This allows residents to experience different types of questioning methods, ensuring a neutral and realistic representation of the final assessment. 

Our mission is to provide medical physics residents with comprehensive training by integrating them into our team in a supportive environment, without pressure of taking on excessive responsibilities. This allows them to learn and adapt to our clinical needs while staying up to date with the requirements of the residency program.


Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 3
Learning together – Forums for radiation oncology and physics residents to exchange views

Horacio Patrocinio
MUHC

Medical physics residents in radiation oncology are required to learn enough clinical concepts to be able to effectively communicate with their physician colleagues. Radiation oncology residents need to learn enough physics to understand the technical details of the treatment plan they use on patients. In theory it would seem these objectives can be well easily aligned to allow learning together for both groups. However, for a distributed program such as the one at the McGill University Health Centre, with residents in as an as 7-8 different institutions geographically well separated, the challenge can be great to schedule. The approach at the McGill program has been two-fold. First, residents are required to complete a research project with clinical involvement. At our main facility, which also houses our radiation oncology residency program, physics residents carry out their projects in collaboration with their physician counterparts. At community centres, the research is carried in in collaboration with tenured staff due to the non-availability of residents’ counterparts. Recently, a second initiative was introduced – common learning sessions around treatment planning objectives. The sessions consist of a clinical case, provided by the medical physics staff, and designed to cover both a clinical scenario and a treatment planning approach. During each session, radiation oncology residents briefly present the clinical details of the case as well as the why the treatment approach is appropriate for the given site and diagnosis. Physics residents discuss the suitability of the treatment plan and discuss what is needed to successfully deliver such a plan. Together they argue what appropriate immobilization, simulation and IGRT conditions would need to be. Content for one-hour sessions for palliative, breast, prostate, GYN, thorax (SBRT and conventional), brain (SRS and conventional), skin and ENT treatments has been created and sessions are carried out once every couple of months.


Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 4
University of Toronto Department of Radiation Oncology Medical Physics Residency Program Highlights

Patricia Lindsay
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

The University of Toronto Department of Radiation Oncology Physics Residency program is a single program with five clinical sites.  Physics residents are registered learners at the University of Toronto and employees of their local hospital. The program typically has 10-12 physics residents in total, with four residents at each of the two larger cancer centres and one resident at each of the other sites. Our program has been CAMPEP accredited since 2008 and has graduated a total of 82 residents.

Some recent initiatives implemented in our program are: electronic documentation for scheduling and evaluations of residents and faculty, resident-led monthly journal club, and resident-led site visits.  Electronic documentation of resident, supervisor, and rotation evaluations was implemented in 2022, following a review of the rotation objectives and development of in-training assessment report (ITAR) objectives. Monthly resident journal clubs were implemented in 2020, to facilitate communication and collaboration between residents at different hospital sites. This provides residents with opportunities to present to their peers and to learn from clinical physicists from each of the sites. Resident-led site visits were initiated in 2023, with visits to two of the hospital sites.  The host residents organized a day of activities, including an overview of the site, meeting with the physics faculty at that site, and specific scientific learning objectives focused on an area of specialty offered by the host program. The first two sessions focused on MR-linac and cone-based stereotactic radiotherapy/radiosurgery. 

There are many challenges and opportunities presented by a residency program with a single curriculum that is implemented at five clinical sites of varying sizes. The outstanding efforts of our education officer, the residency program directors at each site, the physics faculty, the chief physics resident, and of course all the physics residents in the program offer the opportunity to implement new initiatives to strengthen and enhance our training program.


Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 5
Smaller can be better: the contrast between training at regional clinical centers and large academic institutions

Radim Barta
Central Alberta Cancer Center & Cross Cancer Institute

The pandemic period has led to a proliferation of remote work and virtual training. This modernization of education delivery allows training at smaller satellite centers while providing the same rigor and comprehensiveness offered at larger academic centers. 

Michelle completed a BSc at the University of Toronto and an advanced diploma in Radiation Therapy through the Michener Institute of Education. She completed the online course, Dosimetry 1, offered by CAMRT (Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists) while working in Red Deer at the Central Alberta Cancer Centre (CACC). Jacob completed his graduate degree through the University of Calgary while working in Lethbridge at the Jack Ady Cancer Centre. He is a medical physics resident at the Cross Cancer Institute (CCI) in Edmonton. Radim completed his graduate work at the CCI through the University of Alberta. He is a resident at the CACC. 

Through our experiences at small centers and large academic institutions, we found common strengths and opportunities offered by completing training at secondary/remote sites. Small centers offer a daily integration of soft and hard skills through more access to members of the interdisciplinary clinical team. Didactic lessons are often immediately applied as mentors, teachers, and co-workers are often the same individuals. Often there is more involvement with clinical projects as trainees are appreciated as integral to the clinical team. 

Training programs benefit from direct local support and from collaboration with academic centers. Educators at small centers need protected resources to dedicate time to teaching. There should be thoughtful integration of clinical responsibilities and the training program so trainees can contribute meaningfully to the center without extending completion times. Forming a strong connection to an academic site allows solo trainees to connect with peers, reducing feelings of isolation, especially if the program funds travel to the partner site for specialized training.


Proffered Session 1: Residency/Training Program Highlights - Presentation 6
BC Cancer Medical Physics Residency Program Structure – A Tale of Six Cities

Wayne Beckham
BC Cancer

Since the BC Cancer Medical Physics Residency Program accreditation in 2011, it has grown rapidly, especially in the last few years increasing from four to eleven positions as of intake in July 2025. This makes it one of the larger CAMPEP programs which provides some unique challenges but also presents opportunities, which we think will be of interest to the audience.

Faculty and residents are distributed across six geographically separated cancer centres, therefore having associate director level presence at each participating centre was essential for CAMPEP accreditation to ensure proper accountability for residency related activities. Furthermore, ensuring residents receive a consistent, high quality educational experience is also something that has influenced the evolution of our organizational structure.

We will first describe how we have capitalized on our large number of residents to facilitate a few multi-center activities, which help and encourage them to experience a sense of community and peer support through their educational experience. Several specialized techniques that are unique to a given cancer centre exist in BC and we facilitate opportunities for residents not from that city to travel and observe these. We also provide multiple avenues for residents to give feedback on the program as they progress and how this has led us to continually improve what we do.

Our program structure requires faculty from all 6 centers to work together, which encourages sharing of teaching experiences.  We also need to ensure long term sustainability of the program and so we will showcase our approach to succession planning.

This presentation will highlight our approach to governance and operation of this program, and we will share some of the learnings along the way that have shaped how we do this. By no means do we present this as a residency Eutopia, we still have much evolution to do as BC Cancer expands it’s services and opens four new cancer centres in the next five to six years. We will need to continue to innovate and improve to meet the expectations of our residents.

 

Speakers / Panelists

    Horacio Patrocinio
    Assistant Professor and Clinical Coordinator, Radiation Oncology Physics Residency Program

    Wayne Beckham, PhD, FCCPM, FCOMP
    Provincial Medical Physics Leader

    Jacob Groeneveld
    Resident in Radiation Oncology Physics

    Andrea McNiven
    Director, Medical Physics