newsletter - acpsem queensland...rebranding continue across all sites. currently tugun is being...

April 2015

Published on behalf of the ACPSEM QLD Branch

acpsemq.org.au

Welcome to the first edition of the ACPSEM QLD Branch Newsletter

for 2015! The last newsletter was released in September last year by the

lovely editing team of Zoë Moutrie and Craig Lancaster. This year the reigns

have been handed over to Emma Inness and Bess Sutherland, who are both

very excited to tell stories to all of the physicists in Queensland.

This edition contains department updates since the last newsletter, kindly

submitted by volunteers from each department. If your department is not

here this time round, don’t waste time asking yourself and your colleagues

“why not” – send us an email with something for the next edition! Our goal

by the end of end of the year is to have updates from ALL departments in

Queensland!!

Also in this newsletter, you will find an intriguing Blast from the Past (page

9), Physics Phun (page 10), and exciting information regarding the Brisbane

Duck Race (page 3). This year also marks the 25th

Annual Local Symposium.

The topic for this very special symposium will be Future Innovations in

Healthcare. More information can be found on page 2.

With so few medical physicists, collaboration is imperative to ensure we

have safe, effective, efficient and quality services all over Queensland and

Australia. We hope that we can continue building networks and friendships

between our departments, and share our experiences and knowledge.

Finally, we wish you all a happy and safe Easter, and hope that your QAs go

quickly and smoothly so that you can spend this break with your family and

friends.

CALENDAR

OF EVENTS

PRIMPS 16

End of May – you decide!

25th

Annual Local Symposium

and Winter School

28th August, PAH

Brisbane Duck Race

18th October

International Day of Medical

Physics

7th

November

EPSM Conference

8-12th

November, Wellington

PRIMPS 17

November – TBA

QLD Branch AGM

December - TBA

Newsletter

If you have any news, ideas, updates, stories or anything of interest

relating to medical physics that you would like to share with the rest of

the QLD medical physics community, please email the editing team:

Emma Inness: [email protected]

Bess Sutherland: [email protected]

acpsemq.org.au Never miss an update with the ACPSEMQ website! Optimised for smart

photons, the website contains all the local branch information you need.

For feedback and suggestions, email the webmaster Scott Crowe on

[email protected]

ACPSEMQ Branch Newsletter April 2015

2 | P a g e


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Support the Duck festival

The following article was written by one of our members, Katrina

Biggerstaff, which brings awareness to an important event which could help

promote our field – Medical Physics!

In October, 2014 I volunteered at the biggest PA foundation fundraising

event: the Support the Duck festival (http://www.supporttheduck.org.au).

The event is targeted at the general public with the slogan “Stop Cancer”

with a push to promote awareness and raise funds for cancer research.

There were plenty of activities for young children and delicious food stalls

all along the river. Cancer survivors, sponsors and doctors were invited to a

VIP area where they could mingle and occasionally come up to give an

inspiring speech on the main stage.

The main event was the Great Brisbane Duck race where thousands of small

rubber ducks (numbered on the bottom) were let loose to float down into

the Brisbane River. The first three ducks to float down a 100m lane had

corresponding ticket numbers of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners ($45 000

car, $10 000 boat and trailer and $5000 travel voucher). Alas, I still drive a

Yaris today.

Other races were held throughout the day for bursts of entertainment. There was a race in giant inflatable ducks

between various TV and radio presenters, a race between an inflatable raft of surgeons and another giant inflatable

duck, and two races of motorised and non-motorised rubber ducks which only corporate groups could enter. The whole

day was hosted and broadcasted by 4KQ 693 radio station. My job that day was to sell tickets for the little ducks and

help organise corporate groups who were also fundraising and participating in one of the various races.

So why am I writing this page about a duck race? What’s this got to do with the college newsletter? I believe this event

would be a great opportunity to promote medical physics as a career path and public awareness that it even exists!

During the rafting of surgeons the radio presenter commented on how important these guys were and what a great job

they were doing. That could be us! This could be Queensland’s small contribution towards the goals outlined the

Tripartite National Strategic Plan (http://www.ranzcr.edu.au/about/faculty-of-radiation-oncology/faculty-

initiatives/tripartite-strategic-plan-consultation). For some proof that we need to promote ourselves as medical

physicists: I got a picture with a person dressed as Einstein. EINSTEIN! A physicist! I’m thinking they were going with the

thought process of “Research… scientist... Einstein”. Doesn’t that bother you?

The next Support the Duck festival will be held 18th

Oct, 2015 in West End. My goal is to have an ACPSEM college

information booth at the event this year and have at least one corporate group participating in the motorized and non-

motorized duck race event (time to put fluid dynamics into play!). Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to be

involved this year and if you have any questions or comments.

Duck race contact info For further information on the duck race event, or

if you would like to participate, email Katrina

at:[email protected]


4 | P a g e

Update

International Day of Medical Physics – 7th

November, 2014

The day was marked at ROQ Toowoomba with cakes brought in by the physics team: a water tank with Markus IC and a

linac (at 180° for structural stability!!).

Staffing Update

ROQ Cairns bid a sad farewell to Sam Towns on

February 13th. He has moved back to his hometown of

Melbourne and we will all miss him heaps. On the plus

side, we welcome Ihab Ramadaan who joins us from

Wellington, NZ. He started with us on February 2nd and

is settling in well.

ROQ Gold Coast also welcomes Aleksandra Kazi who

moved from 1 day/week to 3 days/week from the start

of March. It is great to have another qualified member

on the team!!

Professional Development Activities

Talia Jarema attended the ANSTO Advanced Radiation

Safety Officers Course in November, 2014 and travelled

to Barcelona for the ESTRO Dose Modelling and

Verification for External Beam Radiotherapy course in

March, 2015.

Dean Wallace attended the ACPSEM Summer School on

Radiation Shielding/Protection in November, 2014 and

is just returning from his 2nd Line Elekta Physics Training

course in England.

Emmanuel Baveas attended a 1-day course on

functional imaging last month.


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Update

Since the last newsletter, the fourth and final new CT scanner was installed at GCCQ Tugun site. Now all GCCQ sites are

equipped with Siemens CT scanners and Physics are enjoying the luxury of having their own CT to QA. Tugun was also

lucky enough to receive the first Varian TrueBeam linear accelerator in Queensland. Although there was a learning curve

to figure out this magnificent piece of technology, all staff (particularly Physics) were very excited and eager to learn.

Out with the old, in with the new as renovations and

rebranding continue across all sites. Currently Tugun is

being bought into the 21st century and we look

forward to sharing those photos with you. This

particular beauty to the right was found during clean

up, it’s older than one of our physicists!

Late last year GCCQ welcomed Mark West to the

team. He didn’t take long to settle in, diving straight

into his first project – the Wesley TrueBeam. GCCQ

also welcomes back Trent Aland, the beloved

ACPSEMQ Chairperson 2012-2013. We are particularly

excited to have Trent back on board for both his

physics knowledge and nutritional advice.


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Update

Oceania Oncology is very excited to finally open our

Fraser Coast Centre in Hervey Bay. We started treating

patients earlier this year after months of commissioning

and site setup. With Hennie Smit coming over from South

Africa and Yang Wang coming up from NSW along with

Onno, Dan and Kurt from Oceania Oncology, it was a

packed control room, especially considering the chairs

had not arrived yet. Highlights of the commissioning

include climbing onto the roof of the building to do the

survey and a door being built to block access to the empty

bunker which trapped the water tank inside. The new

centre contains an Elekta Synergy linac and is being

looked after by Onno and Daniel.

The Fraser Coast centre is already treating close to 30 patients per day, over 60% of which are IMRT, and saving a daily

three hour round trip for those patients of ours who started treatment at the Bundaberg clinic. We very much welcome

any of our fellow physicists from around QLD to join us at the grand opening to be held in the coming months - details

to be announced soon.

We have also welcomed Yousif to our physics team in November who many of you may have met at the last PRIMPS.


7 | P a g e

Update

With the end of 2014 came many personal and departmental achievements for the PA Hospital. In particular, four staff

members became certified ROMPs (Vaughan Moutrie, Catherine Jones, Ben Harris, and Emma Inness). This called for a

physics pub crawl via means of a citicat around Brisbane CBD. Thanks to everyone who came along – it was a great day

out!

The last event of 2014, was the

departmental Christmas party, where

physics was in charge of organising drinks

for the event. In true physics form, an old

watertank was used as the ‘esky ‘ for the

day, much to the amusement of the whole

department. It was such a success that it

earned its place back in our store room,

where it will wait until Xmas 2015.

On the 18th January, Eva Liu gave birth to a

healthy, 2.8kg, baby girl, Maia. This

corresponded well with Peta Hanlon’s

return from Maternity leave in March.

Congratulations Eva, & welcome back Peta!

In academic news, Paul Charles took on a 3 year adjunct position at QUT

(at the level of Associate Professor) - we are looking forward to all the

new and exciting projects Paul can assist us with. Salma Ibrahim also

completed her Masters in Medical Physics over the Summer Semester,

with a research project in small field dosimetry – Congratulations Salma!

Publishing in a clinical environment can be difficult, so we are very happy

to share the good news that the PA has had two first author, and two

second author, publications accepted for print since the last Newsletter.

Feel free to contact any of the authors for further details!

• Herwiningsih S, Hanlon P, Fielding A (2014) Sensitivity of an Elekta iView GT a-Si

EPID model to delivery errors for pre-treatment verification of IMRT fields

Australas Phys Eng Sci Med 37(4):763-770.

• Kairn T, Charles PH, Cranmer-Sargison G, Crowe SB, Langton CM, Thwaites DI,

Trapp JV (2015) Clinical use of diodes and micro-chambers to obtain accurate

small field output factor measurements. Australas Phys Eng Sci Med (In Press)

• Moutrie V, Kairn T, Rosenfeld A, Charles (2015) Use of a megavoltage electronic

portal imaging device to identify prosthetic materials. Australas Phys Eng Sci

Med (In Press)

• Charles PH, Cranmer-Sargison G, Thwaites DI, Kairn T, Crowe SB, Pedrazzini G,

Aland T, Kenny J, Langton CM, Trapp JV (2014) Design and experimental testing

of air slab caps which convert commercial electron diodes into dual purpose,

correction-free diodes for small field dosimetry. Med Phys 41(10): 101701


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Welcome and Goodbye

Additional to the previous updates, the ACPSEMQ would like to acknowledge the following staff changes around the

state. If your department has recently welcomed or farewelled anyone, please send your updates to the editing team

for inclusion into the next newsletter.

• Jacqui Charles has left RBWH to pursue other

interests (that aren’t physics). Jacqui has been a

long term staff member at RBWH and was a co-

founder of PRIMPS. She can’t escape the

physics world completely so we look forward to

seeing her at future events that Paul drags her

along to.

• Scott Crowe has taken up a research position at

RBWH, which is very exciting for the team

there, but also very sad for QUT. We’re looking

forward to seeing (even more) great work from

Scott in the months and years to come.

• The PAH welcomed Miriam Barry in November,

and Luke Webb in January. Miriam has previous

experience in the UK, and is with us for 6

months in collaboration with QUT to carry out a

research post. Luke recently completed his

Masters at QUT, and is actively involved in the

department

• The PAH farewell Benjamin Harris, who has

joined the team at Austin Health in Melbourne.

Ben successfully completed his Part A & B TEAP

exams in December. The staff at PAH wish him

well in an accredited role in Victoria.

February saw the inter-state departure of Zoë and Vaughan

from QLD Health to Genesis CancerCare NSW. Zoë has been

a valuable committee member of ACPSEM-Q for five years,

two of which were spent as treasurer. Her hard work and

commitment hasn’t gone unnoticed and her contributions

will be missed this year. Queensland physicists and RTs

came together to farewell Zoë and Vaughan in a pub crawl,

starting at the Pineapple Hotel, followed by the German

Club, and then the Chalk Hotel. The day/evening was a

successful one, with the boys enjoying the Socceroos

victorious 2-1 win over South Korea in extra time at the

Asian cup final. There was much beer, champagne, shots,

and cocktails consumed; the photo was taken at the time

of the first shot, and shows Vaughan in good ‘spirits’. We

wish Zoë, at the Mater, and Vaughan, at Macquarie, all the

best in their future endeavours!


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Blast from the Past The following is an excerpt from the

Queensland Branch Newsletter

No. 1 – 1995.


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Physics Phun

For our Easter edition of the Newsletter we have decided

to include a “Medical Physics” relevant crossword that

we’re sure you will all love to do over the Easter break

(once your QA is finished of course!) whilst eating lots of

chocolate eggs and hot cross buns! The first person to

complete the crossword and send it back to the editors

will win a prize, and will be announced in the next edition

of the Newsletter, along with the answers.

Have Phun, and Happy Easter!!

1

2

1

2

3

3 4

4

5

6

5

6

7

7

Across

1. Recommended chamber for electron calibration _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ plate (8)

2. Produced by a linac, may be used to treat superficial

lesions (9)

3. Massless particle (7)

4. Cavity theory that provides relationship between

absorbed dose in a chamber and the dose in the

medium containing the chamber (5-4)

5. Inplane, crossplane, diagonal (7)

6. Part of a kV tube, which emits electrons when heated (7)

7. Become a problem when shielding energies above 10

MV (8)

Food for thought

Not only does the Varian TrueBeam have two light bulbs, but the

light source does not rotate with the collimator. How would YOU

check it?

Down

1. 100 � �� ⁄ (8)

2. 100 � �� ⁄ (8)

3. Type of penumbra due to radiation through jaws

(12)

4. More sensitive than a PDD to energy changes in

a photon beam: diagonal _ _ _ _ _ (5)

5. Type of penumbra due to finite source size (9)

6. PTV: Planning _ _ _ _ _ _ Volume (6)

7. Effect seen in kV units due to x-rays being

produced at various depths in the target (4)

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