NukeWorker Forum
Career Path => Getting in => Topic started by: tucker0104 on Sep 17, 2007, 09:00
-
I am a former nuke for 8 years that worked in radiation health for 3 years and received my thomas edison bachelors and certified NRRPT. I am currently working on my masters in radiation health physics and will be tkaing the required test to be a CHP. I was wondering what kind of jobs are open for me if I wanted to get involved in the medical side of radiation work?
-
administrative.
-
It sounds like a Radiologist job or something in Nuclear Medicine would suit your needs.
Hope it helps.
-
Universities too. But they tend to hire the folks who went to their school. Kinda works like that.
-
Any big research hospital has a RSO (Radiation Safety Officer). A Master's Degree and CHP certification will qualify you for those positions. Hospitals that have large cancer therapy units or nuclear medicine departments will have need of a medical physicist. Being a CHP is usually qualification enough for the Medical physics position however, there is a certification from the ABMP (American Board of Medical Physics) that is sometimes required for these positions. The problem with finding employment in either of these positions is that there tends to not be a high turn-over rate for these jobs. If you are a HPS member there is a members only employment site that sometimes lists Medical Physics or RSO positions. I am in much the same position as you. I have my MS in Health Physics and have taken the CHP exam (waiting till November for the results :-\) I would like to go into the medical field, however, I do not want to leave the area I live in, Therefore I am waiting for somebody to die so I can have their position ;). If you find a good listing of medically leaned jobs I would love to know about it. Hope this helps and GOOD LUCK
-
Tucker,
I am a current Navy nuke (ELT/MM1) who is "going" (distance learning) to Oregon State University for my MS in Radiation Health Physics. I went up there this summer and met many people from many different types of jobs, including a medical RSO and a medical physicist. It sounds like you are/were a RHO. A medical physicist would be more along the lines of x-ray machine calibration, radiation therapy dose calculations, etc. The RSO would be more concerned with the worker protection practices used during these medical procedures (I hear the most notorious problem is getting doctors to wear their dosimetry). Sometimes, these people are one and the same. The only problem with medical physicists is that most everywhere requires 3-6 years of experience prior to getting their job. If you are in a hospital setting as an RHO, you should be fine for this. From the information I gathered, the medical physicist in a cancer therapy setting tends to work alot (80+hr weeks), but they get paid a lot (100K+). As far as a university, I'm not sure how and if they promote from within, but on the Health Physics Society website a few months back the University of Minnesota was looking for one, and right now USUHS is looking for one.
Jason