Academic Courses > DOS 771
DOS 771 - Clinical Practicum I
Course Description
In popular culture, the idea of "book smart" versus "street smart" comes up again and again. The idea behind the differentiation is to separate skills that work in idealized circumstances from skills that work in the messy real life. Many skills fall into both categories, but only if adequate time is devoted to practicing them. Reading about how to drive a car, playing a car driving video game, and getting behind the wheel of a real car are very different experiences, although all of them can contribute to a broad scope of understanding.
The Clinical Practicum class is the interface between the didactic portion of the master's program and the on-the-job clinical portion of the program. By spending 30 hours every week in the clinic doing real work, we take knowledge that have learned in academia and apply it to real world situations. We also learn hands-on skills from experienced dosimetrists, many of which are difficult to express in books and lectures.
The Clinical Practicum class is the interface between the didactic portion of the master's program and the on-the-job clinical portion of the program. By spending 30 hours every week in the clinic doing real work, we take knowledge that have learned in academia and apply it to real world situations. We also learn hands-on skills from experienced dosimetrists, many of which are difficult to express in books and lectures.
Assessment
This class uses several types of structured activities including lab assignments and case studies to guide and inform our learning in the field. It also keeps us on track and on pace with our overall learning by making sure that we are becoming comfortable with a varied set of clinical competencies. We are evaluated not only by our didactic instructors who grade the structured activities, but my our clinical supervisors who assess our pace and extent of learning in the clinic. My experience with the clinical portion of the program is that it is intense, rich, and invaluable.
Clinical Achievements
Since this class is primarily hands-on rather than formally didactic, progress is tracked and measured by tracking a range of Clinical Achievements.
Service
Hands-on learning also includes lessons on how to engage with the rest of the world on more than a conceptual level. Part of this section of our personal development is accomplished through Service to our Employer, Profession, and Community.
Reflections
At the conclusion of each course, students are asked to reflect on what they have learned about the material and about themselves. The reflection is guided by five questions:
The new knowledge and skills I gained during this clinical semester were...
Even though I have been exposed to contouring, fusion, QA planning, dose accumulation, and reporting for quite a while before this program, this was my first real foray into actual external beam planning. The didactic classes have taught me about how photons behave, but taking those rules and applying them to real patient datasets and getting some head-scratching moments where things didn't work out because of far-from-ideal anatomic shape has really helped me develop a toolbox of different techniques to try. I have learned about field-in-field techniques, and I have had real-world experience with wedges, which is slowly helping me build intuition about what to try.
Skills I hope to learn more about and use next semester are...
I want to learn about IMRT and VMAT. These seem to be the bread and butter of our clinic, and I want to feel more useful in being able to tackle any case that comes along. I also want to continue to develop experience in more basic techniques so that I can have an intuitive grasp of knowing when some plan of attack is a dead end long before I've wasted hours and horus on something that an experienced dosimetrist could have told me wouldn't work in the first five minutes. I won't get to Yoda levels for a few years, but I don't want to feel like I'm fumbling through things.
What I enjoyed most about this clinical rotation...
I am pleased at how quickly I have been able to become comfortable working in a new career in a new city with new people. The physics group at Loyola is particularly welcoming, and it has been a pleasure to work with them and to pick their brains about every little topic that springs to mind. This center is set up around the idea of teaching, and I am surrounded by excellent teachers.
What I struggled with the most throughout this clinical rotation and how I plan to work on it...
Using an Oncology Information System is quite a new concept for me. I have plenty of experience with imaging systems, but setting up a patient with the correct prescription and linking fields to DRRs and scheduling treatments and doing billing and the multitude of other related tasks are overwhelming. To complicate matters, we used Mosaiq for my first semester, and tonight, the last night of the semester, is the official changeover day to the new Aria system we just installed. When I get back from break, I'll be learning another new system all over again. I will need to remake my flashcards to guide myself through how to document cases in this new system. This could be a blessing in disguise, because by the end of my internship, I will have practical experience in both of the two major OIS products!
Other reflective thoughts...
In talking with my other classmates, I think my learning process is on track in terms of what kinds of things I know how to do, but I still often feel like I don't know what I'm doing. This is a hard transition from a career were I was an expert at what I did. Then again, if I'm not feeling uncomfortable, then that might mean I'm not being challenged and I'm not growing. I definitely feel challenged, and looking back now I see that I've learned a huge amount of new skills this semester and I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I'm doing just fine!
The new knowledge and skills I gained during this clinical semester were...
Even though I have been exposed to contouring, fusion, QA planning, dose accumulation, and reporting for quite a while before this program, this was my first real foray into actual external beam planning. The didactic classes have taught me about how photons behave, but taking those rules and applying them to real patient datasets and getting some head-scratching moments where things didn't work out because of far-from-ideal anatomic shape has really helped me develop a toolbox of different techniques to try. I have learned about field-in-field techniques, and I have had real-world experience with wedges, which is slowly helping me build intuition about what to try.
Skills I hope to learn more about and use next semester are...
I want to learn about IMRT and VMAT. These seem to be the bread and butter of our clinic, and I want to feel more useful in being able to tackle any case that comes along. I also want to continue to develop experience in more basic techniques so that I can have an intuitive grasp of knowing when some plan of attack is a dead end long before I've wasted hours and horus on something that an experienced dosimetrist could have told me wouldn't work in the first five minutes. I won't get to Yoda levels for a few years, but I don't want to feel like I'm fumbling through things.
What I enjoyed most about this clinical rotation...
I am pleased at how quickly I have been able to become comfortable working in a new career in a new city with new people. The physics group at Loyola is particularly welcoming, and it has been a pleasure to work with them and to pick their brains about every little topic that springs to mind. This center is set up around the idea of teaching, and I am surrounded by excellent teachers.
What I struggled with the most throughout this clinical rotation and how I plan to work on it...
Using an Oncology Information System is quite a new concept for me. I have plenty of experience with imaging systems, but setting up a patient with the correct prescription and linking fields to DRRs and scheduling treatments and doing billing and the multitude of other related tasks are overwhelming. To complicate matters, we used Mosaiq for my first semester, and tonight, the last night of the semester, is the official changeover day to the new Aria system we just installed. When I get back from break, I'll be learning another new system all over again. I will need to remake my flashcards to guide myself through how to document cases in this new system. This could be a blessing in disguise, because by the end of my internship, I will have practical experience in both of the two major OIS products!
Other reflective thoughts...
In talking with my other classmates, I think my learning process is on track in terms of what kinds of things I know how to do, but I still often feel like I don't know what I'm doing. This is a hard transition from a career were I was an expert at what I did. Then again, if I'm not feeling uncomfortable, then that might mean I'm not being challenged and I'm not growing. I definitely feel challenged, and looking back now I see that I've learned a huge amount of new skills this semester and I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I'm doing just fine!
Academic Courses > DOS 771
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Published May 8, 2015
Second Semester, 4 Months into Internship |