Clinical Training course designed to expose students to best practices in radiation dosimetry using modern equipment and techniques. Students will be actively involved in the calibration and dosimetry of treatment beams using equipment such as ionization chambers and water phantoms. Students will be exposed to commonly used relative dosimeters such as TLDs and Film. Quantification of dose has been an important factor in the development of modern radiotherapy. Physically based treatment planning, using metrics such as radiation dose, is successful because these metrics are measurable, and thus the treatment plan is directly verifiable by good dosimetry. To achieve a good clinical outcome a certain accuracy in the dose delivered to patients is required. Medical physicists are tasked with routine dosimetry of radiotherapy systems to guarantee the quality of the services provided.
On successful completion of the course, students should be able to:
1. Use ionization chambers to perform absolute determination of absorbed dose to water under reference conditions for radiotherapy beams following a standard dosimetry protocol.
2. Use a range of dosimetry systems and phantom materials for the measurement of relative dose and dose distributions of radiotherapy beams.
3. Perform dose verification procedures.
4. Perform dosimetric checks for individual patients, patient groups, standard treatment techniques, and special or new treatment techniques.
5. Implement recommendations for quality assurance of dosimetry equipment in a radiotherapy department.