The COMP Virtual Winter School Program includes both plenary and small group interactive sessions. This format will give attendees the chance to learn from “best in field” career development, medical physicists who have seen success in their careers and to exercise their new skills through workshopping.
Interdisciplinary in nature, the program will provide tools for medical physicists, radiation therapists, radiation oncologists and other healthcare professionals to support their personal career development process.
A regular component of Winter School, the Project Gallery, will provide opportunity for peer-to-peer learning about professional and program development initiatives that have helped lead to career growth for individuals, and program growth for healthcare teams. You can find more information on the abstract process here.
This meeting has been approved for 15 MPCEC hours.
Introduction: Where We Are, Where We Have Been, and Where We Are Going
February 1, 2021 from 11:15am EDT to 12:45pm EDT
Medical Physics Perspective
SABR/SBRT has been dominating our horizons since making the leap from cranial applications in the 1990’s. It is an exciting, albeit risky venture - balancing potential for a meaningful impact in radiotherapy with the risk of doing significant harm if not done correctly. For a medical physicist, it is a dream come true as there are many complex problems that need solving; exquisite equipment performance, inventive immobilization systems, impressive image registrations, devilish dose calculations, maddening moving targets, beautiful beam arrangements, and intense image guidance. The balance between achieving a sufficient BED to the target while respecting still-evolving normal tissue tolerances makes for a challenging treatment scenario. With clinical trial data coming in fast to support SABR in both primary cancer (i.e. NSCLC, HCC, prostate) and metastatic (i.e. oligometastatic) settings, centres are in a stronger position to advocate for operational support from their hospital administrations and health ministries as the up-front human & equipment investment is considerable. The recent COVID pandemic has forced many centres to look closely at the evidence for hypofractionation and this may facilitate the push that is needed to make the leap towards more SABR-like dose fractionations.
Speakers / Panelists
-
Introduction: Where We Are, Where We Have Been, and Where We Are Going
February 1, 2021 from 11:15am EDT to 12:45pm EDT -
Discussion (panel)
February 1, 2021 from 12:45pm EDT to 1:30pm EDT -
Introduction: Where We Are, Where We Have Been, and Where We Are Going
February 1, 2021 from 11:15am EDT to 12:45pm EDT -
Discussion (panel)
February 1, 2021 from 12:45pm EDT to 1:30pm EDT -
Introduction: Where We Are, Where We Have Been, and Where We Are Going
February 1, 2021 from 11:15am EDT to 12:45pm EDT -
Discussion (panel)
February 1, 2021 from 12:45pm EDT to 1:30pm EDT -
Differentiating Between Best Practice and Billing Driven Practice: SBRT in Two Healthcare Systems
February 3, 2021 from 11:00am EDT to 11:30am EDT -
Introduction: Where We Are, Where We Have Been, and Where We Are Going
February 1, 2021 from 11:15am EDT to 12:45pm EDT -
Discussion (panel)
February 1, 2021 from 12:45pm EDT to 1:30pm EDT -
Setting Up SBRT Program
February 4, 2021 from 11:00am EDT to 12:30pm EDT
Alanah Bergman, PhD, FCCPM
Medical Physicist
Alanah Bergman, PhD, FCCPM
Alanah Bergman, PhD, FCCPM
Medical Physicist
BSc McGill University, Physics (Hon), 1994
MSc McGill University, Medical Physics, 1997
PhD University of British Columbia, Physics (Medical Physics), 2007
Dr. Bergman is a senior medical physicist at BC Cancer - Vancouver and Fellow of the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine. She has been in the thick of the rapid expansion of the stereotactic body radiotherapy (SABR) program at BC Cancer. She has seen the program grow from 14 lung SABR patients in 2009 to an extensive multi-site program, treating 300 SABR patients/year including lung, liver, pancreas, spine, bone, adrenal, and lymph node targets. Alanah has been super excited to have BC Cancer participate in several landmark Canadian-led SABR Trials. Her interests currently lie with motion management for lung and liver SABR and she is the lead physicist for the BC Cancer Dynamic Tumour Tracking program. Her current work includes expanding the fiducial-based Liver SABR tracking program and implementing a fiducial-LESS tracking program for Lung and Liver. She is also interested in re-treatment planning workflows, particularly in the SABR context.
Darby Erler, MRT(T), MHSc
Professional Leader
Darby Erler, MRT(T), MHSc
Darby Erler, MRT(T), MHSc
Professional Leader
Professional Leader, Radiation Therapy, Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre
Darby Erler MRT(T), MHSc is the Professional Leader for the Radiation Therapy Program at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre. She is appointed as an Instructor with the Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto and a Practice-Based Researcher at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. Darby completed her degree in Radiation Sciences through the Joint Michener Institute/ University of Toronto Medical Radiation Science program in 2003 and received a Master of Health Science in Medical Radiation Sciences from the University of Toronto in 2015. Prior to taking on the Professional Lead role, she was the Clinical Specialist Radiation Therapist for the Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) Program for 7 years. Her research interests include assessing clinical outcomes associated with the use of SBRT, evaluating innovations in treatment delivery and improving the patient experience with the use of patient reported outcomes.
Annie Hsu, PhD
Medical Physicist
Annie Hsu, PhD
Annie Hsu, PhD
Medical Physicist
Dr Annie Hsu has been the Associate Head of Medical Physics at the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre since 2019. Prior to this she was a Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford University where she was the Chief of Clinical Physics Radiation Physics Division for five years. She currently serves on the AAPM Clinical Practice Committee, the Spring Clinical Meeting Subcommittee, the Summer School Subcommittee and the Medical Physics Practice Guideline 4.b (TG344). The COMP Winter School Committee is the first COMP activity she has had the pleasure to be involved with. Areas of interest include SBRT and Radiosurgery as well as efficiency in radiation therapy workflows while maintaining safe practices.
Devin Schellenberg, MD
Radiation Oncologist
Devin Schellenberg, MD
Devin Schellenberg, MD
Radiation Oncologist
Dr. Devin Schellenberg completed medical school and Residency at the University of BC and University of Toronto. He went onto a Fellowship at Stanford University and is currently the Department Head of Radiation Oncology at the BC Cancer Surrey Centre and the chair of the Lung Radiation Oncology working group with CCTG.
He treats Lung and Gastrointestinal malignancies and is a leader in the Provincial Stereotactic Ablative Body Radiotherapy (SABR) program. His current research efforts focus on how radiation can be used to treat early lung and liver cancers, if radiation can alter the course of metastatic disease, and (outside of cancer) whether radiation is able to treat heart arrhythmias.