About Radiation Medicine
On behalf of the department’s faculty, residents, and staff members, welcome to the home page of the UK College of Medicine Department of Radiation Medicine, and thanks for your interest. We are very proud of our department, because we have so much of which to be proud, both academically and clinically.
Our Educational Programs
Our department is home to two fully accredited residencies. The radiation oncology residency attracts outstanding candidates who spend four years after internship learning the art and science of radiation oncology under the mentorship of the faculty. As a group, they typically perform in the top 25% of residents nationally on in-service examinations, and current board pass rates are very high (top quartile). The program is currently approved for six residents over the four years. Residents are very active in research, with most of them presenting at national meetings and publishing in peer-reviewed journals during their residency.
The residency in medical physics accepts two residents per year for a 2-year program, plus two to three additional physics residents are accepted into community affiliate programs in Arkansas and Indiana. All of these residents are taken from our departmentally-based Masters and PhD Programs in Medical Physics. This fully accredited 2-year program is one of the longest running medical physics training programs in the country. The medical physics faculty are very engaged in didactic and clinical training of the students and residents and take great pride in the strength of the programs.
Research
Our research programs encompass multiple areas of investigation including clinical and translational science. Clinical research includes participation in cooperative group and industry-sponsored studies in addition to innovative investigator-initiated trials. Active NCI-funded laboratories are also engaged in translational science investigations. Many investigations involve our faculty scientists working collaboratively with investigators in the NCI-designated Markey Cancer Center, providing access to outstanding shared services and other support that enhances research opportunities.
Clinical
Clinically, we enjoy an amazingly talented faculty of radiation oncologists and medical physicists who are nationally recognized as excellent clinicians and thought leaders in their areas of interest. Their dedication to their patients and their desire to find ways to improve treatment are uniformly evident. Care is rendered with a subspecialty focus, which further enhances the level of expertise and knowledge offered to each patient under our care. Each faculty member appreciates the opportunity to take care of some of the most complicated oncology patients anywhere, and they enjoy having the facilities, technology, resources, and the teamwork required to provide that care at a very high level.
In terms of external beam radiation therapy, our patients benefit from Varian TrueBeam, Varian Halcyon and Gamma Knife technologies, making our department one of the most technically sophisticated departments anywhere, with full capabilities for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), total body and total skin RT, and all other external beam delivery techniques. There is access to PET-CT for radiation simulation and treatment planning. Our radiation implant program (brachytherapy) is one of the busiest in the country, performing implants for gynecologic, breast, prostate and other primary tumor sites. Our brachytherapy re-irradiation experience for recurrent gynecologic malignancies is unique in the country and attracts patients from all over the country. We also work with our nuclear medicine and medical oncology colleagues and other specialists to provide systemic radiation treatment with a spectrum of unsealed sources for metastatic prostate and breast cancer, liver tumors, and other malignancies as appropriate, with a particular emphasis in neuroendocrine tumors.
Our clinical operations focus on the needs of our patients and their families, and we benefit from a culture of quality care and service. This culture requires tremendous teamwork that recognizes the contributions of every member of our staff. Consistently, we are rated very highly by our patients, who accurately perceive a superb level of care and caring. Based on institutional and national comparisons, our patient satisfaction ratings are very high, and this is a source of pride for our staff.