A snapshot of medical physics practice patterns.

Kelly D Kisling,Sharbacha S Edward,Dong Joo Rhee,Rachel B Ger,Scott Dube,Paige L Nitsch,Joonsang Lee,Shaquan D David,Jinzhong Yang,Brian M Anderson,Diana L Urbauer,Peter A Balter,Constance A Owens,Yulun He,Skylar S Gay,Laurence E Court,Tucker J Netherton,Christine B Peterson,Carlos E Cardenas

doi:10.1002/acm2.12464

Abstract

A large number of surveys have been sent to the medical physics community addressing many clinical topics for which the medical physicist is, or may be, responsible. Each survey provides an insight into clinical practice relevant to the medical physics community. The goal of this study was to create a summary of these surveys giving a snapshot of clinical practice patterns. Surveys used in this study were created using SurveyMonkey and distributed between February 6, 2013 and January 2, 2018 via the MEDPHYS and MEDDOS listserv groups. The format of the surveys included questions that were multiple choice and free response. Surveys were included in this analysis if they met the following criteria: more than 20 responses, relevant to radiation therapy physics practice, not single‐vendor specific, and formatted as multiple‐choice questions (i.e., not exclusively free‐text responses). Although the results of free response questions were not explicitly reported, they were carefully reviewed, and the responses were considered in the discussion of each topic. Two‐hundred and fifty‐two surveys were available, of which 139 passed the inclusion criteria. The mean number of questions per survey was 4. The mean number of respondents per survey was 63. Summaries were made for the following topics: simulation, treatment planning, electron treatments, linac commissioning and quality assurance, setup and treatment verification, IMRT and VMAT treatments, SRS/SBRT, breast treatments, prostate treatments, brachytherapy, TBI, facial lesion treatments, clinical workflow, and after‐hours/emergent treatments. We have provided a coherent overview of medical physics practice according to surveys conducted over the last 5 yr, which will be instructive for medical physicists.

Highlights

Surveys have been a useful tool in understanding and documenting the standard‐of‐care in various topics in radiotherapy physics.[1–4] Over the past 5 yr, there have been over 250 surveys distributed mainly through the medical physics listserv covering varying topics of interest to clinical physicists
The surveys with fewer than 20 responses had an identical survey on a different listserv, and the total responses in the combined surveys were above 20
This work summarizes responses to 139 surveys distributed to the MEDPHYS and MEDDOS listservs over a 5‐yr period, covering topics of particular interest to practicing medical physicists

Summary

Introduction

Surveys have been a useful tool in understanding and documenting the standard‐of‐care in various topics in radiotherapy physics.[1–4] Over the past 5 yr, there have been over 250 surveys distributed mainly through the medical physics listserv covering varying topics of interest to clinical physicists (e.g., simulation practices, use of image guidance, and clinical workflow). Over the past 5 yr, there have been over 250 surveys distributed mainly through the medical physics listserv covering varying topics of interest to clinical physicists (e.g., simulation practices, use of image guidance, and clinical workflow). We aimed to make this valuable resource more accessible to the medical physics community by summarizing the results of the surveys that were of general interest for therapeutic medical physicists, had a reasonable number of responses, and were not vendor specific. This summary can serve as a convenient reference for the community to understand the actual practice patterns of their peers

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion