The Road Less Chosen – Alternate Pathways to Certification for Internationally Trained Medical Physicists
Description
In the current Oncology HHR crisis, existing training programs cannot keep up with demand for trained and certified medical physicists. The conventional residency pathway is not keeping up with market demand, resulting in unfilled positions and unsustainable workloads for physicists working in centres unable to recruit qualified staff to fill these positions. Internationally trained medical physicists represent a mostly untapped resource for recruitment, largely due to inaccessible certification requirements. ABR Structured Mentorship and the CCPM Bridging Program are alternate pathways for internationally trained medical physicists, some with decades of experience, to become eligible for certification through the usual examination process. Yet, these programs remained underutilized, with only a small number of candidates able to access and navigate these pathways. In this session, we aim to identify challenges for candidates and employers in accessing alternate pathways to certification, and discuss strategies for improving accessibility to help address the current HHR challenges faced by all medical physics departments.