After a five-year hiatus to raise her kids, Brenda Clark decided she would
buff up on her physics. She headed to university to train as a medical physicist.
She graduated and went to work as a teacher at a junior college. Eventually,
she ended up at a cancer clinic, working as a medical physicist.
"You can direct your career into one of several options," she says. "There's
a lot of overlap with medicine and other professions. There are a lot of different
aspects to the job. Technology is changing it at a rapid pace."
Clark has witnessed some of that change for herself.
The university hospital where she studied was among the first
in the world to use the new treatment methods for small lesions in the brain.
"I was there at the first treatment. It was very exciting."
Years later, she says, some patients suffered neurological symptoms. Clark
examined the archived treatment plans of the patients to determine what caused
those symptoms.
"The radiation was done with the best tools we had at the time," she says.
"You do the best you can with the tools you've got."
Clark went on to pilot a new treatment planning system that had been developed
by a colleague. It eliminated some of those early negative side effects. In
searching for ways to improve the plan, she discovered a new appreciation
for her job.
"It's challenging because you're put in positions where you can
make a difference," she says. "Basically, you're looking for reasons
why things happen, why they are the way they are."
That fascination with making a difference washes over the career choice
of many medical physicists.
Jerry Battista became interested in the field because of the "combination
of loving physics and wanting to find a place to apply it to real people.
"Not too many jobs have the combination of high tech and an impact on the
people side," he says. "This job has both."
Twenty years ago, he says, his greatest interest was in clinical service.
But that has changed to research.
Battista is determined to improve radiation technology.
"Radiation is used in 50 to 55 percent of cancer cases," Battista says.
"If we can improve radiation technology, that's extremely valuable to
the survival of those patients. We are waiting for the cure, but until it
arrives we have to hold the fort.
"Where we'd like to be is curing people. As we develop better imaging
tools, we'll be able to select...patients with truly localized disease.
My sense is that we'll be able to cure 90 percent of those cancers."
Research seems to be a very popular aspect in the work of medical physicists.
John Schreiner is president of a college of medical physicists. He also admits
to enjoying research.
"I enjoy the research and developing new ways to deliver the radiation
dose," he says. "As I worked up the ranks, the most satisfying work was with
the patients. And also teaching. But now it's research."
Research and the application of computers to the treatment of cancer have
widened the scope of possibility within the field.
"It's gotten a lot more sophisticated in how we can locate and plan
delivery of radiation."
By hand, Schreiner says, it was possible to target one or two spots. With
computers, it is possible to calculate various doses of radiation throughout
an area.
James C.H. Chu is chair of the department of medical physics at a medical
center in Chicago. "If it really works, you can see pretty quickly what radiation
can do to a patient with a cancer," he says.
But the effects of treatment on a patient are not simply the result of
one individual. The results only come when a team works together.
"Being able to work well with people is extremely important to having a
successful career as a medical radiation physicist," Chu says. "That is important
in this field. Not only do you have to work with other clinicians. You have
to work with technicians and patients. You have to enjoy interacting with
other people."
Like many of his medical physicist colleagues, Mike Patterson fused together
two powerful interests -- medicine and physics -- to form a career.
For Patterson, the choice was pretty easy. "I come from a medical family,"
he says. "But I didn't want to become a doctor. I wanted to take on medical-oriented
problems from a physics perspective."
Medical physicists often talk of meshing these two interests. They have
a need to apply their knowledge and passion for physics to a field where they
can have a positive impact on human beings.
"Clinical service is very invigorating," Schreiner says. "At the end of
the day, you can feel that you've helped someone."