by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | March 03, 2017
From the March 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
A homegrown credentialing process comprised of materials including lectures and educational sessions provided by the nonprofit Particle Therapy Co-Operative Group (PTCOG) was another vital part of the Maryland team’s training process. There are generally four cohorts involved in proton therapy: physicians, dosimetrists, physicists and therapists. Different classes and courses are geared toward different individuals, and according to Chamblee, continued education courses can be equally valuable for experienced clinicians looking to do more with the proton facility they’ve already got.
Lee Chamblee with some
students at MD Anderson
“The majority of the visitors are people who want to know what it takes to operate a center someplace in their home country,” says Chamblee, “or, if they have a proton center and they want to learn about treating more cancers. “More than half of the first week [of the course at MD Anderson] is devoted to nothing but disease site-specific information — prostate, head and neck, genitourinary cancers — which is great because the attendees can hear a physician presentation right there and ask any questions they have.” The next class at MD Anderson is scheduled to begin March 27.
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Step two: Network with peers
Once you’ve done your homework and decided to go forward in pursuit of opening a proton therapy facility, it’s a good idea to start forging working relationships with other proton facilities. These partnerships can provide a more hands-on level of education than general classes.
The team in training can observe patient set-up and discover characteristics and challenges unique to treatment planning that might be different from using photons, or conventional radiation. A big part of that education is about mitigating range uncertainty, becoming familiar with how far accelerated protons travel and ensuring they don’t stop too soon to treat the entire tumor. The Scripps Proton Therapy Center in San Diego opened in early 2014 and provided this kind of mentorship to the Maryland team via teleconferencing. “They would show us how dose was delivered, and our team had to document that they had sat in on at least 10 cases of these peer review dosimetry sessions,” says Regine.
