Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences offers a 24-month Medical Physics Residency at Mayo Clinic's campus in Arizona. The program in therapeutic medical physics is designed to generate real-world, hands-on experience for the medical physics graduate in a structured and safe environment.

The residency is divided into 12 modules that highlight the different aspects of the practicing clinical medical physicist. These range from basic treatment planning all the way to advanced topics, such as shielding design, acceptance, and commissioning of LINACs and treatment planning systems. More details can be found within our curriculum section.

Program highlights

Residency philosophy

We learn. We strive to have the courage, integrity, and knowledge to be competent independent medical physicists. We challenge ourselves to look at each task, QA item, and project as an opportunity to learn more, and by doing so, to grow as a person.

Program goals

The Medical Physics Residency aims to give you:

• Two years of experience that transitions you from a learner to an independent medical physicist by stepping through rotational, continuous, and independent modules
• Mentoring by experienced physicists
• Access to state-of-the-art equipment and techniques
• Research opportunities
• A focus on Mayo Clinic values

Residency values

• Respect: We encourage the freedom to speak one’s mind. We also encourage looking inward. We challenge our own thinking. We listen to understand, not to refute.
• Integrity: We tell the truth to each other and ourselves. We have a grounded base of reality and see things as they are, not as we want them to be. We choose to do the right thing, even if it may be uncomfortable. We do and say what is right, even if it differs from what subordinates, peers, or superiors want to see or hear. We admit mistakes, however challenging that may be.
• Teamwork: We work as a team, not undercutting each other. We back each other up in a positive way. The needs of the patient come first.
• Innovation: We look at new ways of doing the same thing. We seek to know which areas are appropriate for innovation, we have courage to change, and we allow room for failure when trying a new approach.
• Excellence: We take responsibility for learning the skills needed to excel as medical physicists in the complex environment of modern radiation oncology. We make decisions based on technical and scientific reasons, not hope. We diligently study. We continually seek ways to learn from a process, simultaneously improving it and ourselves. Leadership has the obligation to develop tools to achieve continuous improvement.

Residency principles

• Initiative: We take action without direction from above to improve our knowledge as medical physicists and find solutions to problems.
• Commitment: We are present when we come to work. We give it our best. We choose to be here.
• Empowerment: We encourage those around us to take action and support them if they make mistakes. We employ stewardship delegation.

Completion and certification

After successfully completing the residency, graduates receive a certificate of completion from Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences and are eligible to take the Therapeutic Medical Physics board exam from the American Board of Radiology.

Accreditation

The program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Educational Programs (CAMPEP).

Note: Mayo Clinic is listed on CAMPEP's list of accredited institutions for four programs — two of the programs are in Rochester, Minnesota, one is in Florida, and one is in Arizona. They are distinct programs with separate accreditation.

See accreditation information for Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.

Program statistics