Meet Shirley….our Physicist!
January 21, 2010
Each week I am going to introduce you to our staff so that you will be more familiar with all wonderful and talented individuals at Randolph Cancer Center who have made it their life’s work to take care of you. This week, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Shirley our physicist. She is one of the few staff who work primarily behind the scenes to ensure your care is the best it can be.
“ I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)
I am not sure why I was asked to do the first of 25 staff blogs within our organization, but I have to assume it is because most people, even my friends and family have no idea what I do. I was a college dropout that eventually went on to become a Medical Radiation Physicist. At this point, you have probably started looking for other things to read. “Medical Radiation Physicist” sounds boring, even to me. I did not choose to be a Radiation Physicist, but rather grew into it.
Like most people, I knew little about medicine, radiation or physics when I entered the Radiologic Technologist Program at Moses Cone Hospital many years ago. I choose the program because they paid a small stipend which would help finance my college education and they also provided a low cost place to live. The prior couple of semesters of college provided me with no real vision of what I wanted to major in (certainly not physics) and I was anxious to be all grown up. After all, I was making some money and I had a place to live.
One requirement of the RT Program was to spend time in the Radiation Oncology Department. Radiation Oncology was then considered a specialty branch of Radiologic Technology and additional training was required to become certified in the treatment of cancer patients. Hence, I entered the Radiation Oncology Technology Training program at UNC. About the same time I finished the Radiation Oncology program, I finally completed an undergraduate degree. It only took me 6 years but my parents were happy.
Sacramento, California offered me the opportunity to be the Director of the School for Radiation Oncology Technology and Medical Dosimetrist. As Director of a training program I was asked to submit questions for the first certification test offered by the Medical Dosimetry Certification Board. Might add that I also took the first test and passed it. Is that cheating?
UNC-CH had one of the few graduate programs in Radiation Physics and was my ticket back to NC. I actually was considering applying for Medical School, but was told that I needed more physics courses. In graduate school I heard a story about a college physics professor explaining a particularly complicated concept when a pre-med student interrupted him. “Why do we have to learn this stuff?” “To save lives,” the professor responded. “So how does physics save lives?” asked the student. The professor thought for a while and continued “Physics saves lives because it keeps certain people out of medical school.” Graduate school in physics was not fun or something that I want to repeat. For the first time in my life, I actually used every single function on my calculator, the “fun” center of my brain deteriorated from lack of use and I found that I could do vector analysis but forgot how to do long division. Most of my classmates went into nuclear power but I stuck with the medical field. I still have a job, so good decision.
After completion of the graduate program (another 3 years), I became a consultant in Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Radiation Oncology for a large portion of coastal North Carolina.
Now I am employed by Moses Cone Hospital as a Medical Radiation Physicist in a joint venture with Randolph Cancer Center. When I left Moses Cone over 30 years ago who knew I would be coming back.
According to the American Association of Physicist in Medicine, medical physicist “assure the safe and effective delivery of radiation” in the diagnosis or treatment of a patient, as prescribed by a physician .Physicist are involved in radiation beam measurements and quality assurance including calibrating the radiation therapy equipment and ensuring the equipment functions correctly and safety. This ensures that the correct doses are delivered to the patients, and that the equipment can be operated safety by the personnel.
Patients seldom know that we exist, but we know each and every one of them. All patients’ charts are reviewed before they start treatment, at least weekly during treatment and after they finish treatment. The biggest challenge is that a single mistake by a medical physicist can impact many, so it’s an emotionally tough job. The biggest reward is that I never grow bored with the field, learn something everyday and leave each day feeling that I have contributed.
Bogue is my baby dog and he and my husband are the love of my life. Like me, he has no special talents, but is passionately curious.
