Medical Physics Fellow, Radiation Therapy - BC Cancer - Victoria

at  PHSA

MEDICAL PHYSICS FELLOW, RADIATION THERAPY

BC Cancer – Victoria, BC
Temporary Full-Time (1.0 FTE) or Casual (37.5hrs/week)
BC Cancer - Victoria is offering a 1-year medical physics post-doc fellowship within the department of Clinical Medical Physics with a focus on implementing modern methods in radiotherapy processes. The fellow would be reporting to the Regional Leader and joining a team of 8 Sr. Medical Physicists, 4 Medical Physicists, 1 Medical Physics Resident, 2 Physics Assistants, 3 Radiation Technology Service Technician (RTST), 1 RTST trainee and 1 Tool and Die Maker.

BC Cancer – Victoria currently houses:

• 6 Varian TrueBeam linacs
• 2 GE Discovery CT simulators
• 1 XStrahl superficial unit
• 1 Elekta Flexitron HDR afterloader

and has just embarked on a protracted major equipment replacement cycle, with 1 linac and 2 CT simulators already scheduled for replacement in 2024 and 2 more linac replacements in 2025, providing excellent opportunities for innovation and research.

WHAT WE DO

BC Cancer (www.bccancer.bc.ca) is committed to reducing the incidence of cancer, reducing the mortality from cancer, and improving the quality of life of those living with cancer. BC Cancer provides a comprehensive cancer control program for the people of British Columbia in partnership with regional health authorities to deliver a range of cancer services, which include prevention, screening and early detection, diagnosis and treatment, research, education, supportive care, rehabilitation and palliative care. It operates six regional cancer centres in Surrey, Kelowna, Vancouver, Victoria, Abbotsford and Prince George, along with two research centres that conduct research into the causes and cures for cancer.
BC Cancer is part of the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) which plans, manages and evaluates specialty and province-wide health care services across BC. PHSA embodies values that reflect a commitment to excellence. These include: Respect people • Be compassionate • Dare to innovate • Cultivate partnerships • Serve with purpose.
PHSA and BC Cancer are committed to employment equity and diversity and hires on the basis of merit. We welcome applications from all qualified individuals, including visible minority group members, women, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity. Citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority. We recognize that our ability to provide the best care for our diverse patient populations relies on a rich diversity of skills, knowledge, background and experience, and value a safe, inclusive, and welcoming environment.
Reconciliation is an ongoing process and a shared responsibility for all of us. The BC Governments’ unanimous passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act was a significant step forward in this journey—one that all health authorities are expected to support as we work in cooperation with Indigenous Peoples to establish a clear and sustainable path to lasting reconciliation. True reconciliation will take time and ongoing commitment to work with Indigenous Peoples as they move toward self-determination. Guiding these efforts Crown agencies must remain focused on creating opportunities that implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Mandate.
Eligible applicants should submit a detailed Curriculum Vitae, contact information for 3 references, a transcript from your PhD studies and a cover letter clearly describing your motivation in applying for this position to:

Below is a sample of research areas available for the successful fellow at BC Cancer – Victoria:
Knowledge-based planning models: We aim to improve planning efficiency and consistency, treatment quality and outcomes for patients receiving radiotherapy treatments at BC Cancer – Victoria by deploying Knowledge Based Planning (KBP) for most cancer sites. KPM (RapidPlan) models will be created in Eclipse and validated in a semi-automated way by processing, analyzing and preselecting a large number of clinical treatment plans from our radiation oncology database. The cost (man-hours) of manually generating KBP models is otherwise too onerous to adopt KBP widely in the clinic. A fellow skilled in scripting languages will develop methodologies to automate the process of creating, fine-tuning and validating RapidPlan models and thus expedite the clinical implementation of this important technology. While KBP has been shown to generally result in many improvements in RT plans, the potential improvement on patient outcomes has yet to be understood. We propose to estimate changes in patient outcomes using tumor control probability (TCP) and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) models for rapidly proliferating tumor sites.
Quality Assurance (QA) Program Improvement: BC Cancer – Victoria has just recently embarked on a heavy equipment replacement cycle (2 CT and 6 linacs, in 3-4 years). A fellow skilled in scripting will significantly enhance
our Quality Assurance program, ensuring rapid improvements and the establishment of robust, long-term QA infrastructure tools like QA Track+. The fellow will help to develop robust software tools for automating the analysis of quality control measurements. This role is not only pivotal in boosting our efficiency and validating the quality of our patient care in the short term, but it also offers a unique opportunity for a fellow to gain invaluable experience in managing and improving a Quality Assurance program in a high-volume clinic, addressing a diverse and expanding range of patient needs.
CT simulation: As one of the first radiotherapy departments in Canada to integrate the cutting-edge GE Revolution Apex CT scanner, we are well positioned to set the standard of practice for the next generation of CT simulators provincially and nationally. This fellowship is crucial for developing protocols and workflows uniquely tailored to radiotherapy, leveraging the expanded capabilities of the new scanners. The Apex’s advanced features, including the Quantix 160 X-Ray tube and Deep Learning Imaging Reconstruction can deliver higher quality images than the previous generation and may increase the precision of tumor localization, treatment planning, and monitoring. The ‘TrueFidelity’ images, which provide high spatial resolution and low contrast detectability, will allow us to image low contrast anatomy with unprecedented clarity, essential for accurate radiotherapy delivery.
Spatially Fractionated Radiotherapy: Spatially fractionated radiotherapy (SFRT) is a technique that has been gaining some clinical acceptance, especially for large or radioresistant tumours. Unlike conventional radiotherapy approaches that aim to deliver a uniform dose to a tumour volume, SFRT is a technique designed to deliver a heterogeneous dose distribution that consists of high dose peaks or vertices separated by low-dose valleys. Planning strategies for specifying beam ballistics as well as the size and distribution of dose vertices or surrounding avoidance structures are not well understood. Furthermore, the robustness of the technique to motion effects, in terms of maintaining the integrity of the peak-to-valley ratios, has not been characterized. We aim to develop and validate through phantom studies a new planning and delivery approach for SFRT using current linear accelerator and image guidance technology available at BC Cancer – Victoria.