by
Gus Iversen, Editor in Chief | March 03, 2017
A technician stands next to
the Mevion S250 proton therapy
system at the Ackerman
Cancer Center in Jacksonville, Fla.
From the March 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
When the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston opened its Proton Therapy Center in 2006, it was only the third such facility in the U.S. Although the treatment had existed for decades, mounting evidence and technological advancements were beginning to illustrate the benefits over conventional radiation therapy when it came to eradicating certain tumors.
As word got around, MD Anderson began hosting visitors who were curious about offering the costly, but cutting-edge, treatment to their patient populations. These guests would often shadow the clinical team in order to get an idea of how the facility operated and what steps were taken to get it online.
“It wasn’t always successful because there were days when the physicians didn’t have any patients to see and the person — who may have been coming from across the world — would just sit there and wait for something to happen,” says Lee Chamblee, education coordinator for the MD Anderson Proton Therapy Training Program.
Other days, the team would be too busy to sit down with the visiting physician and discuss the program. Today, there are over 20 proton therapy facilities in the U.S., so it’s easy to imagine how all of these visitors seeking insight on the treatment could have been overwhelming for MD Anderson in those early days. In fact, the need for formal education was what ultimately led to the creation of Chamblee’s position, and the development of a twice-a-year proton therapy program that MD Anderson began offering last May.
Depending on an enrollee’s interests, the course offers guidance on clinical proton operations, treatment planning and physics and service maintenance. The students — mostly physicians, a few dosimetrists and the occasional administrator — share a common interest in dipping their toes into proton therapy.
If your facility is contemplating the possibility of offering proton therapy, the following insights from the director of a successful new facility, the CEO of an equipment company and the head of MD Anderson’s educational department will take some of the mystery out of that process.
Step one: Enroll in educational courses
Like those early adopters who booked flights to Texas and followed the physicians at MD Anderson around for a few days, the first step is getting out and seeing what a successful proton center looks like. As Chamblee can attest, there are more sophisticated educational options at your disposal than ever before.
Dr. William F. Regine, chairman of the Maryland Proton Treatment Center, brought a team of eight to 10 individuals representative of the different specialists involved in providing proton therapy on these site visits. “We were trying to understand what could be different in the patient flow from radiation therapy,” he says. In addition to shadowing at MD Anderson, the group attended a “phenomenal” weeklong winter training course at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in northern Switzerland where hands-on instruction was provided by one of the world’s most experienced proton teams.
