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: The user is about to join residency this year in November and wants to know about the growth opportunities and strategies to grow as a physicist. They mention that most heads of medical physics departments have a PhD.
Response 1: There are a few main career pathways: research, education, and administration/leadership. The respective ways to grow are grants and publications, developing or expanding a program, and taking on large clinical projects and leading AAPM groups. Many high-profile professionals in the field have some combination of all three areas.
Comment 2: The user asks about the goal of residency and mentions that they view it as a way to become ABR certified as a clinical physicist. They also inquire about programs that allow ABR certification.
Response 2: The goal of residency is to become ABR certified as a clinical physicist. If you're looking for programs that won't allow you to get ABR certified, the purpose may not be clear. There may be a list of residencies currently applying to be CAMPEP accredited, although the exact location of the list is unknown. If the user is not interested in becoming a clinical medical physicist, there are biomedical engineering programs that offer imaging coursework.
Response 2.1: I think the Harvard/MGH program combines a certificate into the residency which contains a research year (i.e., postdoc work).
Comment 3: The user, a therapy resident graduating in June 2023, wants to know about the timeline for job offers and any salary information from other graduating residents.
Response 3: The senior resident at the user's location has had a couple of interviews and site visits but no offers yet. They obtained these interviews through personal connections and were not planning on aggressively searching for a position until early next year.
Response 3.1: The user mentions that they have been applying to jobs and have received calls from interested departments, even though they still have 9 months left. They advise that sometimes departments have planned open positions and it doesn't hurt to apply.
Comment 4: The user edited their comment to specify that they have an MS degree and asks about the starting salary with residency plus 3 years of experience. They mention that the salary survey is already old.
Response 4: Another user in the same situation mentions that they are not planning on aggressively looking for a job until January or February. They plan to start work in the early/mid fall after taking a month or two off for boards and downtime. They also mention that the salary they have seen for an assistant professor role is around $150k, but it may vary.
Response 4.1: The second-year residents at the user's location are still looking around for job openings and revising their CVs.
Original URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/MedicalPhysics/comments/xvc15w/training_tuesday_weekly_thread_for_questions/