This is the place to ask questions about graduate school, training programs, or general basic career topics. If you are just learning about the field and want to know if it is something you should explore, this thread is probably the correct place for those first few questions on your mind.
Comment 1: Is there a list of schools for diagnostic medical imaging residency that do not participate in the MP-RAP?
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Response 1: For PhDs in physics or related but not in medical physics, there are certificate programs that cover six required courses:
https://www.campep.org/campeplstcert.asp
You can complete them 1 year full time or two years part time. There are several post-docs in my program doing it on a part-time basis. A friend at another institution is doing his while he completes his PhD in HEP.
Comment 2: Regarding residency competitiveness:
I've been out of my MS program since May (did not apply for residency last cycle, currently working in research, will be applying for residency this cycle). I'm currently ineligible to continue being either an AAPM student member for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, I'm also ineligible to apply for junior membership as I'm not in residency or a post-doc.
I've considered simply postponing my application until I'm in residency so that I can qualify for the junior member application; the reduced cost is pretty important to me at the moment despite the benefits membership offers. However, I recently read around here that not being a current AAPM member might hurt my competitiveness.
Should I make an effort to simply pay the full membership application or is that something that shouldn't be an issue, as long as I explain it?
Response 1: Should not be an issue. My previous place had a residency and when i was reviewing candidates, half of them were not aapm members. It was not a factor in our rankings. Also you might not be eligible for full membership anyway.
Comment 3: I am a current undergrad and was wondering what programs are recommended for those that want to pursue a more clinical route. I have looked at many programs, but I wanted to know if there are any that stand out.
Response 1: The greatest Schools for Clinical focus as I heard would be, LSU, University of Toledo, Vanderbilt University, and University of Kentucky.
Response 2: You will want to go to an MS program, specifically the ones with a proven history of sending their students to residency afterwards. These statistics are required to be posted on their website, and the good programs will highlight it. Don't even bother with the programs that haven't had a graduate (or maybe just a single one) that gets a residency for several years (there are many programs like this).
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Comment 4: Regardless of the source or field, your references should always be able to say something about you. How much can anyone you've only met a few times say about you?
Response 1: Regardless of the source or field, your references should always be able to say something about you. How much can anyone you've only met a few times say about you?
Comment 5: What are the main factors that will make my undergraduate application to be strong, if I doing medical physics job shadowing and taking course about Radiation Physics is that will give more chance to accept in the graduate medical physics programs?
Response 1: GPA and LORs, and maybe some physics research will matter way more than shadowing. If your shadowing can lead to a LOR then that's good, but it will carry a lot more weight if it can refer to substantial work the recommender saw you do, like research, which is obviously a longer term commitment. The value of shadowing is really just for you personally understanding the field a little better, not for adcoms.
Comment 6: I’m an undergrad with zero research experience. Applications are due January for MS programs. I have research planned with a TBD professor on a TBD subject. Is there a nice way to put on my resume that I have not done research, but I will the semester before I attend a program
Response 1: I applied with zero research experience and got into 80+% of the programs I applied to. I made it clear I was interested in a clinical career and chose a clinically focused program. I don't know how I would have fared if I was aiming for a more research heavy program.
You could easily list your upcoming classes and put it under there
Response 2: For masters programs, research is not the most important thing. I had minimal research going into my masters program. I think it may be helpful to have some idea or a direction your research may go in to be able to discuss in interviews if they seem interested or directly ask you about it. As for putting this on your resume, I would either not include anything or put a section of planned courses/research in the winter semester. Again, even including a general topic that it probably will be in could be nice. Hopefully someone else that has applied with zero research experience will respond with their strategy and outcome.
Comment 7: Hi everybody, I was wondering if the people applying for the residency positions that are offered outside of the match system, such as Wash-U, MD Anderson and UT Southwestern, have started to hear news from the programs. Has anybody been contacted for interviews yet?
Original URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/qg3vlx/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/