Category: Miscellaneous babble

Nala, Simba and Mischief would like to wish everybody a very Happy New Year filled with lots of treats and toys.

2015 was a pretty good year by all accounts. Started out pretty quiet, and ended with a flurry of activity. The activity continues in 2016, but I’m anticipating it will be another good year too, especially with a new house to move in to.

Nala turned 11 a few days ago, and Simba will turn 10 next month. They’re both a little more gray around the muzzle and their paws, but they stlil don’t act their age, especially Simba.

It’s a rainy start to the new year and now it’s time to go start the Lord of the Rings marathon.

Hope everybody has a great 2016!

I have a few filters that I no longer need.

• UV
• Neutral density (ND8)
• Circular polarizer

The camera I used to use them with doesn’t work anymore.

If anybody would like any or all of them, just drop me a line.

The trees next to the house drop these large nut type things every other year that I’ve been told are pecans. This year the trees have dropped considerably more nuts than I’ve ever seen before.

Making things more interesting is that a bunch of them have split open and started sprouting, which is another thing I haven’t seen these things do (or noticed anyway).

I planted some of them in some holes I dug around the yard, and the others I left on the ground where they sprouted. Since we won’t be here much longer, I won’t get to see what happens to them, but hopefully they end up sprouting into saplings and then into trees.

November 7 (in addition to being BarcampCHS 7) is the third annual International Day of Medical Physics as well as being Marie Skłodowska Curie‘s birthday. The theme for this year’s IDMP is “Better Medical Physics = Better Cancer Care in Radiation Oncology“.

Being a diagnostic medical physicist, I generally don’t have a lot of involvement in radiation oncology. The use of imaging in radiation therapy is growing though, so I have more occasions to work with my therapy physicist colleagues these days.

Diagnostic medical physicists like me stay busy doing a great many things, including:

• equipment performance tests to make sure the imaging equipment is performing according to state/federal guidelines and manufacturer specifications
• quality control/quality assurance
• teaching residents and technologists the physics behind how the equipment works and how the images are generated
• calculating radiation dose estimates
• creating lead shielding plans for x-ray rooms
• working with radiologists and technologists to optimize imaging protocols and techniques
• working with field service engineers to diagnose equipment related problems
• troubleshooting image artifacts
• research
• collaborating with radiologists and other physicians on research projects

You probably won’t see us if you need to get an x-ray or imaging study done, but we’re there working behind the scenes making sure the images look good while using a minimal amount of radiation.

Questions? Feel free to ask!