Students will learn dose limits, regulations, safety procedures, shielding, and testing. They will also learn the protection roles of the radiation oncologist, radiation therapist, radiation safety officer and clinical physicist as they pertain to patients, personnel and the public. Purpose and methods of personnel monitoring and patient monitoring will be reviewed to include types of emergencies that can occur and procedures to be followed. Students will begin to gain skill in clinical procedures, interaction with patients and professional personnel as they apply didactic knowledge to the clinical aspects of radiation therapy and become familiar with various radiation therapy aspects of patient care. All student activity in this activity will be supervised by a registered radiation therapist.
Student begins to be tested on basic clinical radiation therapy skills.
Applies knowledge from previous clinical learning experience under the supervision of a registered radiation therapist. Students are tested on intermediate clinical radiation therapy skills. Through the use of lecture and labs the student becomes familiar with acceptable machine specifications and tests performed to check compliance. Students will study quality assurance tests related to patient charts, treatment accessories, patient communication devices, machine panel reading and indicator lights, mechanical and electrial safety devices, readout devices, light field, radiation field and collimator indicator agreement, machine dose rate constancy, beam penetrative quality, field symmetry and flatness, mechanical and optical patient alignment devices, linear scales on treatment tables, collimator rotation readout devices, gantry rotation readout devices, stability of isocenter under collimator and gantry rotation, treatment couch isocenter, film processor performance, image quality constancy, combinations of test and brachytherapy source inventory. Students will learn the responsibilities of each team member in relation to quality assurance duties.