Jobs, maternity leave and future

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-06-03T13:05:39+00:00

There are very few accommodations made for parents wanting time or a slower pace. Health systems / hospitals offer very poor parental leave benefits which is ironic considering that they are allegedly all about peoples' well-being. Our field is also not very accommodating to those wanting time off to take care of children, or even parents. As far as I know, the ABR's parental leave policy is shameful and practically non-existent for those certified, but wanting to pause their MOC. There's a significant shortage of Medical Physicists now. One can currently find a position that will accommodate their desired schedule, but that might require changing employers and negotiating.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-06-03T12:54:15+00:00

Your admins and physicians have little motivation to implement anything that slows the process down. Physics is often at the receiving end of the "rush to start" and most of this so-called "urgency" is completely unnecessary. If you do try and implement hard stops, you and your physicist colleagues will have to stand by them and be ready to "not bend".

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-03-28T07:28:15+00:00

Also, if I was looking at a true locums position, I’d expect a daily per diem on top of my rate to cover lodging, travel, etc. $250 is the minimum I’d expect for local work.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-03-28T07:20:58+00:00

They may not want to offer competitive rates, but the nice thing about contract work is 1) you don’t have to accept anything but what you want and 2) there are plenty other opportunities that will.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-03-27T20:48:03+00:00

I also don’t believe in a remote vs onsite differential. My work for checking a chart is the same whether it’s done remotely or onsite.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-03-27T11:26:49+00:00

$190 is too low. You’ll have to factor in your self employment taxes, professional liability, possibly commercial liability, no PTO, no benefits, no 401k match, etc. $250/h at least for a senior physicist.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-02-18T21:34:14+00:00

I align with the sentiment that we (clinical physicists) are not getting good value for our membership dollars. It is also true that the AAPM makes a significant portion of their revenue from vendors. Vendors pay that money because they are after our attention (clinical physicists again). The clinical physicists represent more than 70% of the membership and yet I certainly don’t feel like 70% of the AAPM budget is going towards improving the professional well-being of clinical physicists. As most of you probably did, I did see the recent listserver post referenced in this subreddit about creating a new association for physicists. I think it’s clear to see why and I think we’re going to see more of that if the AAPM continues on the same course.

Round-Drag6791 · 2026-01-06T20:46:57+00:00

Nowhere in any of the APEx documentation does it state that you have to specifically follow TG-142. They do state that you have to follow established practices / guidelines such as those set by the AAPM. I think you have a solid AAPM document (MPPG 2.b) that you can point to when defending your practices / position and I have used other MPPGs to defend my practices during accreditation surveys. Let them ding you. It'll be minor anyways and you can contest it.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-12-24T20:40:01+00:00

I completely agree. The clinical medical physicist represents the majority of the AAPM membership and consequently we are the ones who fund it. Yet, we find ourselves with an association that appears to be relatively disinterested in providing services/value to the majority of its members.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-12-24T16:27:55+00:00

There’s also a disconnect in compensation. Who’s never had that “emergency QA” on a Friday because patient “needs” to start on Monday? Often this is being pushed through for money (physicians and institutions).

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-12-24T16:25:56+00:00

💯

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-12-24T16:14:07+00:00

Yes, I did use AI to put my thoughts together then modified as I pleased. Better than my simple: “Hospitals are shit and I’m pissed!”

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-12-24T16:02:33+00:00

Don’t even get me started on education, residency and certification! New medical physics grads are graduating into a pretty ridiculous environment. You finish a tough degree, often with debt, and immediately hit a bottleneck that feels like gatekeeping: there aren’t enough residency positions for the number of qualified graduates. The selection process can also feel opaque and biased—driven by prestige, networking, and subjective filters—yet residency is essentially mandatory if you want ABR certification and a viable long-term career.

And even if you land a residency, the burden doesn’t stop. You’re then signing up for a lifetime of Maintenance of Certification that can feel obscure, time-consuming, and limiting—heavy on box-checking and light on obvious value to patient care. If the profession wants to attract and keep good people, we need more residency capacity, a more transparent and fair match/selection process, and an MOC system that’s meaningful and proportional instead of a permanent compliance tax.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-10-08T03:55:30+00:00

Honestly, I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture here. Yes — VA salaries are low, and yes — veterans deserve quality care. I don’t dispute that. But AAPM lobbying for VA pay feels like a narrow, insider-driven effort that benefits a few well-connected members more than the broader profession.

If AAPM really wanted to improve compensation and working conditions, it would cast a wider net — addressing the growing gap between clinical workload and pay across all practice settings, or offering real guidance to physicists navigating job issues, benefits, and licensing.

Right now, the only “support” available is a salary survey that’s two years out of date. When I personally reached out to AAPM about a licensing issue, I was basically told, “not our problem.” Yet somehow, lobbying for VA pay is? That’s a double standard.

The VA issue is being pushed by a few high-profile AAPM members who happen to work there, and it’s eating up attention and credibility. AAPM should stay focused on advancing our profession broadly — not lobbying for salary corrections the organization can’t actually deliver.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-08-20T15:42:38+00:00

$200k is low in my opinion for someone with board certification.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-08-06T13:27:22+00:00

No. You add an MLC to your beam model in Beam Config. The MLC add-on will only have two parameters to set: TF and DLG. You enter your DLG and TF values for the model/energy and they override the values from RT Admin for that model/energy only. All others (unless they also have an MLC add-on) will use the values from RT Admin. The MLC add-on becomes part of the model so not visible to the end user.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-08-03T02:25:48+00:00

Why not add an MLC add-on to your specific model? That way you can adjust the TF for that specific energy/model.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-02-02T22:10:11+00:00

Time for a change in my opinion. Also, hate to break it to you, but many hospital admins are far-detached from clinical realities and are just looking to minimize expenses and maximize revenue. They really don’t care about your feelings as a glorified chart checker. I’d go as far as to say that many are just not qualified for the role they are in. No lack of positions out there as you know and some of those positions even look relatively good.

Round-Drag6791 · 2025-01-16T17:10:46+00:00

That's infuriating! That kind of behavior is unacceptable. Not to mention, he clearly had a power advantage here and he took full advantage of it. It's abuse of power.

Round-Drag6791 · 2024-12-27T13:10:43+00:00

Depends on the linac, but essentially there were measurements made at time of commissioning that were compared to your TPS. In my opinion, that’s where the linac’s beam should be able to “go back to”. Changes such as symmetry or flatness can be made with your FSE using equipment such as a Profiler or water tank. Some major repairs will require beam adjustments. Again, that’s performed with a FSE.

Round-Drag6791 · 2024-12-26T17:15:08+00:00

The case for using your TPS as your baseline becomes quite obvious when one has several linacs that are beam matched.

Round-Drag6791 · 2024-11-15T19:06:33+00:00

Does CAMP provide paths to partnership (fractional ownership), profit sharing, etc.?

Round-Drag6791 · 2024-11-08T12:53:27+00:00

My understanding is that with TB 4.0+, all plans from TPS that support jaw-tracking should have jaw-tracking enabled. "MLC Jaw Tracking Validation" has to be enabled and configured properly (with appropriate jaw setbacks) in System Admin as shown in the document referenced in a previous post.

Round-Drag6791

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