TT11-Pre-graduate and Post-graduate, and Residence Training programs and Visiting Physicist(s) at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Almon S. Shiu, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Department of Radiation Physics,

The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center,

Houston, TX,

This presentation will introduce the training programs for pre-graduate (specialized M.S. and M.S./PhD), post-graduate (post-doctoral fellow), and Resident fellow for imaging or radiotherapy at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (UTMDACC). In addition, opportunities for physicists from other institutions around the world to come to UTMDACC to have clinical hands-on training with our physicists are available. The Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world (over 675 acres with over 100 buildings), and is visited each day by over 100,000 people. The specialist MS degree and the (MS) PhD degree Medical Physics programs at the University of Texas Graduate School at Biomedical Science and the Residence program at UTMDACC are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Programs, Inc. Participating departments of the Medical Physics program are the Departments of Radiation Physics and Imaging Physics at UTMDACC and the Radiology Department, Medical School at the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center (32 faculties are involved in pre-graduate Medical Physics programs). The acceptance of students into our pre-graduate programs is based on candidate’s GPA, GRE, recommendation letters, and personal (or phone) interview. The Post-doctoral fellow is accepted based on their skill-set or scientific training, which is the best match for the faculty research project. The Resident training program is used to bring in scientists that will be trained as clinical Medical Physicists. The acceptance of the visiting medical physicist is based on the funding from his/her institution or the supporting organization, and the commitment of time from Medical Physics faculty or clinical medical physics staff. All the trainees are taking didactic coursework in Medical Physics (mandatory requirements for the pre-graduate students and resident fellow). The pre-graduate students are required to take clinical rotation in radiotherapy and imaging physics. A thesis is also required for a pre-graduate student to get his specialized MS degree. The additional requirements for (MS) PhD students are introductory Biochemistry, three 10-week research tutorial, thesis (for a student entering with a BS degree), and dissertation. The training for medical physics residents is divided into eight segments in a three-month interval. The postdoctoral fellow focuses on participating in a specific research project for equivalent of 28 months and clinical training for equivalent of 8 months. The training schedule for a visiting physicist is decided among the visiting physicist and the supervisory faculty or clinical physics staff. The details of the clinical and research facilities at UTMDACC and UT Medical School at Houston and the institutional research facilities at Texas, the areas of research interests, and the financial supports will be presented. The medical physics graduate program within The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston is a historically strong program, which continues to produce quality graduates, and has expanded both its faculty and curriculum since 1998 (previous accreditation review).  The number of students recruited into the Ph.D. program has increased significantly while the quality of M.S. and Ph.D. students has been maintained since the previous accreditation.  Excellent funding resources are available to the students, and student research projects have resulted in a significant number of publications.  This is an outstanding graduate medical physics program.  In addition, we have expanded our post-doctoral program from 2 to 3 fellows to 11 fellows in Radiation Physics and 2 to 3 fellows to 9 fellows in Imaging physics. We have 3 residents in Radiation Physics and 2 residents in Imaging physics. We are always opening our doors to visiting physicists that are seeking to update their skill sets, because UTMDACC is a fine institution, which commits its resources for education and training.