Fig 2 - available via license: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
Significant controversy surrounds the 2012 / 2014 decision announced by the Trustees of the American Board of Radiology (ABR) in October of 2007. According to the ABR, only medical physicists who are graduates of a Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs, Inc. (CAMPEP) accredited academic or residency program will be admit...
Similar publications
The 2012 American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Certification Affairs Committee was charged with developing guidelines for the desired professional development pathways for clinical pharmacists. This document summarizes recommendations for postgraduate education and training for graduates of U.S. schools and colleges of pharmacy and describes...
All Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accredited pathology residency training programs are now required to evaluate residents using the new Pathology Milestones assessment tool. Similar to implementation of the 6 Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education competencies a decade ago, there have been challenges in implemen...
Clinical research workforce development efforts have focused on both increasing the size of the workforce of investigators and professionals working in the clinical research enterprise, but also the education and training of those individuals to ensure the quality of study performance to improve the public’s health. A major contribution to these ef...
In a move to emphasize the educational outcomes of training programs, the ACGME has created the Next Accreditation System (NAS). The stated goals of NAS include aiding the ACGME in the accreditation of programs based on educational outcome measures, decreasing program burdens associated with the conventional process-based approach to ACGME accredit...
Introduction:
Educational milestones are now used to assess the developmental progress of all U.S. graduate medical residents during training. Twice annually, each program's Clinical Competency Committee (CCC) makes these determinations and reports its findings to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). The ideal way to c...
Citations
... The most visible influence on the field of education is the accreditation process from the CAMPEP [7], which formalized requirements for accredited educational programs in 2014, requiring accredited degrees for all applicants to accredited clinical residency programs [8] [9]. CAMPEP is aligned with the goals of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) to ensure that the field grows with well-trained individuals [6,10]. ...
Medical Physics education is delivered through accredited programs with admissions and funding for students determined by individual institutions providing the educational experiences. Public data from accredited graduate programs, along with funding data, were used to analyze institutional trends in this educational market. Temporal trends from 2017 to 2023 show robust growth in MS graduates, increasing at an average of 17.7 per year, as compared to steady but modest growth in PhDs, increasing by 3.6 per year. The current status is there are nearly two MS graduates for every PhD graduate. Trends in funding show self-funding of students is a dominant pathway in domestic programs. Those programs dominated by accredited MS education have their largest fraction of faculty in radiation oncology departments, whereas those dominated by PhD education have their largest fraction of faculty in radiology departments. Overall NIH funding in the space of radiation diagnostics and therapeutics has been largely static over this timeframe, but with a notable 5 year rise in NCI funding. This can be contrasted to a substantial 5X-6X rise in NIH funding for engineering research in this same period, with significant increases in trainee funding there. Taken as a whole, this survey shows that growth in the field of medical physics education is dominated by MS graduates, presumably servicing the expanded growth needs for well-trained clinical physicists. However, the research infrastructure that supports PhD training in medical physics seems likely to be growing modestly and missing the growth trend of NIH funding that appears to show substantially more growth in non-accredited programs such as biomedical engineering. This data is useful to informing accreditation guidance on numbers of graduates to match the workforce needs or for inter-institutional planning around education goals.
... Models and further predictions show that a 5% increase in overall workload could potentially lead to a significantly higher number of staff needed from all involved specialties [3]. One example is the increase in demand for medical physicists due to the introduction of new technologies and an increased number of treatment machines [19,53,54]. Combined with a general shortage of personnel due to aging of the existing workforce, which can only be compensated to a very limited basis, this could lead to a real decline in treatment capacity, safety, and overall quality. ...
... Combined with a general shortage of personnel due to aging of the existing workforce, which can only be compensated to a very limited basis, this could lead to a real decline in treatment capacity, safety, and overall quality. Limitations could be reduced through the extension of work contracts or consulting and by increasing the number of open clinical training positions for MPEs [30,53,54]. ...
Background
Radiation science is of utmost significance not only due to its growing importance for clinical use, but also in everyday life such as in radiation protection questions. The expected increase in cancer incidence due to an aging population combined with technical advancements further implicates this importance and results in a higher need for sufficient highly educated and motivated personnel. Thus, factors preventing young scientists and medical personnel from entering or remaining in the field need to be identified.
Methods
A web-based questionnaire with one general and three occupation-specific questionnaires for physicians, biologists, and medical physicists working in radiation oncology and research was developed and circulated for 6 weeks.
Results
While the overall satisfaction of the 218 participants was quite high, there are some points that still need to be addressed in order to ensure a continuing supply of qualified personnel. Among these were economic pressure, work–life balance, work contracts, protected research time, and a demand for an improved curriculum.
Conclusion
Mentoring programs, improved education, and strengthening the value of societies in radiation sciences as well as translational approaches and more flexible working arrangements might ensure a high-quality workforce and thus patient care in the future.
... This factor caused a number of changes in how graduate programs are administered and operated. 1 Additionally, there has been a growing opinion that the doctoral degree is a superior preparation for academic medical physics positions, 2,3 and that training should overtly include research. 4,5 Yet the funding models available for doctoral medical physics education programs are less clear than the master's programs. ...
Medical physics doctoral programs have large variations in organization, administration and financing. Blending a medical physics stream into an engineering graduate program has advantages of pre‐existing financial and educational infrastructures.
A case study of the accredited program at Dartmouth was carried out, analyzing operational, financial, educational and outcome features.
The support structures provided by each institutional partner were outlined, including engineering school, graduate school, and radiation oncology. The initiatives undertaken by founding faculty were reviewed, along with allocated resources, financial model, and peripheral entrepreneurship activities, each with quantitative outcome metrics.
Currently 14 PhD students are enrolled, supported by 22 faculty across both engineering and clinical departments. The total peer‐reviewed publications are ≈75/year, while the conventional medical physics fraction of this is about 14/year. Following program formation, a significant rise was seen in jointly published papers between engineering and medical physics faculty, up from 5.6 to 13.3 papers/year, with students publishing an average of 11.3/person with 5.7/person as first author. Student support was predominantly via federal grants, with a stable 610K/year supporting student stipends and tuition. First year funding, recruiting and staff support were via engineering school. Faculty teaching effort was supported by agreement with each home department, and student services were provided by engineering and graduate schools. Student outcomes were exceptional, with high numbers of presentations, awards, and residency placements at research universities.
The lack of financial and student support in medical physics can be mitigated by this hybrid design of blending medical physics doctoral students into an engineering graduate program, providing complementary strengths. Future growth in medical physics programs might consider following this pathway, strengthening research collaborations for clinical physics and engineering faculty, as long as there is vested commitment to teach by the faculty and department leadership.
... However, future attrition is expected to accelerate as the cohort of baby boomers retires. According to Mills et al.,22 the rate of retirement between 2010 and 2020 was approximately triple that seen between 1990 and 2000. Furthermore, as described in Section 3.1.3.4, ...
... When the American Board of Radiology (ABR) first announced the 2012/2014 initiative, which was strongly supported by the AAPM due to concerns regarding the board passing rates, it restricted entry into the medical physics ABR certification pathway to candidates enrolled in CAMPEP-accredited programs. 6 In response, the AAPM published AAPM Report 197S 5 and TG-133, 4 and CAMPEP established standards 2 and policies 7 for the accreditation of certificate programs. The goal of CAMPEP-accredited certificate programs is, at a minimum, to equip alternative pathway applicants with a graduate level medical physics didactic education required by CAMPEP. ...
Entry into the field of clinical medical physics is most commonly accomplished through the completion of a Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Educational Programs (CAMPEP)-accredited graduate and residency program. To allow a mechanism to bring valuable expertise from other disciplines into clinical practice in medical physics, an "alternative pathway" approach was also established. To ensure those trainees who have completed a doctoral degree in physics or a related discipline have the appropriate background and didactic training in medical physics, certificate programs and a CAMPEP-accreditation process for these programs were initiated. However, medical physics-specific didactic, research, and clinical exposure of those entering medical physics residencies from these certificate programs is often comparatively modest when evaluated against individuals holding Master's and/or Doctoral degrees in CAMPEP-accredited graduate programs. In 2016, the AAPM approved the formation of Task Group (TG) 298, "Alternative Pathway Candidate Education and Training." The TG was charged with reviewing previous published recommendations for alternative pathway candidates and developing recommendations on the appropriate education and training of these candidates. This manuscript is a summary of the AAPM TG 298 report.
... For example, from 2009 to 2016, the number of CAMPEP-accredited residency positions available each year increased from 60 to 144. 1 Nearly 90% of these positions were in radiation therapy physics, and that number began to quickly approach the estimated demand for radiation therapy physicists in 2020. 3 Fewer than 10 of these positions were within DMP programs. That trajectory has continued and one may argue that we now have enough conventional residency positions to meet clinical demand without existing DMP positions. ...
The Professional Doctorate in Medical Physics (DMP) was originally conceived as a solution to the shortage of medical physics residency training positions. While this shortage has now been largely satisfied through conventional residency training positions, the DMP has expanded to multiple institutions and grown into an educational pathway that provides specialized clinical training and extends well beyond the creation of additional training spots. As such, it is important to reevaluate the purpose and the value of the DMP. Additionally, it is important to outline the defining characteristics of the DMP to assure that all existing and future programs provide this anticipated value. Since the formation and subsequent accreditation of the first DMP program in 2009–2010, four additional programs have been created and accredited. However, no guidelines have yet been recommended by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. CAMPEP accreditation of these programs has thus far been based only on the respective graduate and residency program standards. This allows the development and operation of DMP programs which contain only the requisite Master of Science (MS) coursework and a 2‐year clinical training program. Since the MS plus 2‐year residency pathway already exists, this form of DMP does not provide added value, and one may question why this existing pathway should be considered a doctorate. Not only do we, as a profession, need to outline the defining characteristics of the DMP, we need to carefully evaluate the potential advantages and disadvantages of this pathway within our education and training infrastructure. The aims of this report from the Working Group on the Professional Doctorate Degree for Medical Physicists (WGPDMP) are to (1) describe the current state of the DMP within the profession, (2) make recommendations on the structure and content of the DMP for existing and new DMP programs, and (3) evaluate the value of the DMP to the profession of medical physics.
... Workforce needs of the QMP imaging fields have not been as rigorously surveyed or estimated compared with their therapeutic colleagues [20,21]. A concern remains, expressed in editorials and position papers, that the number of imaging residencies is inadequate to meet demand [8,9,22,23]. ...
... In our experience, there is little public information to understand the supply and demand of imaging medical physicists. It is not well known whether the demand for imaging QMPs is driven by an increased need for their services or an egress of retirees that is due to the high median age of the current workforce [21,23,24]. A recent summary of program statistics from CAMPEP-accredited graduate and residency training programs shows a steadily increasing supply of graduates qualified to enter the certification training pathway. ...
The pathway to becoming a qualified medical physicist (QMP) in the imaging physics disciplines includes several certification organizations. Imaging QMPs play an essential role in the safe practice of the diagnostic disciplines, and their qualifications are necessary for compliance with federal bodies and professional accreditation organizations. The future demand for imaging QMPs is largely unknown, but professional organizations that represent these groups agree that efforts should be made to increase the number of matriculating trainees. The number of imaging residency programs that provide the necessary professional experience to enter the certification pathway has increased substantially in recent years. Most of these programs follow a traditional academic hospital-based training model, but guidance on program construction from the accrediting body permits flexibility. Existing training models for medical physics imaging also include consortiums of affiliate partners and private consulting service groups. In this article, the authors briefly review the certification pathways for imaging QMPs, workforce estimates, and training models.
... Using radiation oncology physics as an example, workforce analyses project that the profession will need approximately 180 new radiation oncology medical physicists for the period 2020-2030. 12,13 CAMPEP and match program data show that the profession is not matching a total number of residents annually (therapy and imaging combined) to meet workforce needs with 99 accredited therapy programs and 24 accredited imaging programs. From 2013 to 2017, residency programs increased annually at a rate of 6.8 for therapy and 3 for imaging. ...
... [11] Since then, many studies have used SD modeling to predict the number of required health workforce. [12][13][14][15][16] SD is a "computer-based approach to policy analysis which can be applied to deal with dynamic problems arising in social, economic, managerial, or ecological systems." [11] This approach has the ability to consider a comprehensive set of dynamic variables in workforce forecasting and to take into account both quantitative and qualitative variables. ...
CONTEXT
Shortage of physicians particularly in specialty levels is considered as an important issue in Iran health system. Thus, in an uncertain environment, long-term planning is required for health professionals as a basic priority on a national scale.
AIMS
This study aimed to estimate the number of required neurosurgeons using system dynamic modeling.
SETTING AND DESIGN
System dynamic modeling was applied to predict the gap between stock and number of required neurosurgeons in Iran up to 2020.
SUBJECTS AND METHODS
A supply and demand simulation model was constructed for neurosurgeons using system dynamic approach. The demand model included epidemiological, demographic, and utilization variables along with supply model-incorporated current stock of neurosurgeons and flow variables such as attrition, migration, and retirement rate.
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED
Data were obtained from various governmental databases and were analyzed by Vensim PLE Version 3.0 to address the flow of health professionals, clinical infrastructure, population demographics, and disease prevalence during the time.
RESULTS
It was forecasted that shortage in number of neurosurgeons would disappear at 2020. The most dominant determinants on predicted number of neurosurgeons were the prevalence of neurosurgical diseases, the rate for service utilization, and medical capacity of the region.
CONCLUSIONS
Shortage of neurosurgeons in some areas of the country relates to maldistribution of the specialists. Accordingly, there is a need to reconsider the allocation system for health professionals within the country instead of increasing the overall number of acceptance quota in training positions.
... The training pathway for Medical Physicists in North America has undergone significant changes in the last decade, following the ABR's announcement of the 2012-2014 decision, which restricted entry into medical physics to those candidates who are graduates of an appropriate CAMPEP program. 9 The 2012-2014 decision brought with it the realization that entry into the field of medical physics would require formal and standardized didactic and clinical training. ...
At universities, advanced degree programs in Medical Physics tend to have relatively few students compared to, for example, programs in other Physics sub-specialties. This tends to make them relatively more expensive to operate and, since universities are always looking for ways to reduce costs, there is some concern that such programs will cease to be affordable and other ways to educate medical physicists should be developed. This is the premise debated in this month's Point/Counterpoint. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
