�A wellness initiative spearheaded by QUT has received $800,000 from Queensland Health, allowing the university to attack to raise the profile and increment the recognition of the field of cancer physics in the state.
The initiative will also direct to increase the levels of job satisfaction and level of external living for hospital-based physicists.
Professor Christian Langton, who came to Queensland University of Technology in February from the University of Hull in the UK, has been asked to lead this project.
"I was asked to look at how to improve the issues of recruitment and retention of physicists in the hospital sector, as well as how to raise the profile of cancer natural philosophy both nationally and internationally," he said.
"With the planned expansion of radiation oncology treatment provision throughout Queensland, it is essential that we have a sufficient identification number of hospital-based physicists.
"I thought to bring everyone together in a quislingism of physicists, therapists and oncologists, with the shoot for for Queensland to become an internationally acclaimed, academically minded Cancer Physics centre of excellence, breaking downward professional and institutional barriers."
The Queensland Cancer Physics Collaborative operates under 4 domains: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Service Provision, Education and Training, Research and Innovation, and e-Networking and Awareness.
Professor Langton said the $800,000 would in the first place go towards the appointment of deuce post-Doctoral researcher/trainee physicist posts, along with establishing Australasia's first Radiation Oncology Simulation Environment (3D-ROSE).
The simulator would provide a virtual reality experience of radiotherapy discussion rooms and procedures, which in accession to education and research roles, may also own a valuable awareness part for cancer patients and their families.
Other initiatives planned include clinical exchange placements for trainees with international centres, and university-hospital partnership PhD studentships.
"For Queensland Health, the bottom line is making Queensland more attractive for physicists to work here, so we needed to discover out why there ar disappointing levels of enlisting and retentiveness, to examine what could be done," said Professor Langton.
"The feedback was that these physicists often feel that they ar not accepted and valued, and that they ar not minded enough enquiry time in hospitals.
"As a result, all the things we are doing will look at increasing the job satisfaction and recognition of hospital-based physicists, through the creation of a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaborative environment."
Health Minister Stephen Robertson said the collaboration would attract and retain much-needed genus Cancer physicists in the united States Department of State.
"This is the first initiative of its genial in Australia, and aims to increment the Queensland workforce by making careers in cancer physics more than attractive, luring back physicists who make gone elsewhere and retaining our electric current staff," he said.
"The initiative will heavily focus on professional development and providing physicists with a training footpath, research, e-learning and more than public recognition of the important part cancer physicists play in the handling of patients with crab."
Queensland University of Technology
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