The Medical Dosimetrist and Graduate Program Director

Growing up in Kenya, Jacky Nyamwanda aspired to be a doctor. Then, on a premed track at Smith College, she took a required physics course and found it to be an even better fit for her strengths.

“I just loved it so much more,” she says. “I always liked it in high school as well. But I never imagined it was something I would use in a career. Back then, studying physics meant going to work for NASA.”

Nyamwanda credits her instructors, as well as the all-female environment at Smith, with her decision to choose a path forward in physics. “Women in STEM are sometimes intimidated in a co-ed class,” she says. “But I had so much freedom.”

Though Nyamwanda knew she could stay on a premed path with a physics major, her mind was made up. She still wanted to be in health care, but she would no longer be going to medical school.

After graduation, Nyamwanda worked on DNA sequencing as a lab assistant in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. But after a couple of years, she found she was still thinking of a career in health care.

One day in 2001, Nyamwanda noticed an ad for a medical dosimetrist in the Boston Globe. The preference was for a physics major interested in health care. “And I thought, that is me,” she says. Nyamwanda applied and began on-the-job training at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she continues to practice as a part-time dosimetrist today. Finding the ad while sitting on her stoop that day was, she says, “very fortuitous.”

Medical dosimetrists work with radiation oncologists to calculate the precise path of radiation beams as part of a cancer treatment plan. The challenge is to map a trajectory for the beam that targets a tumor without exceeding the radiation dosage limit for nearby organs. Dosimetrists are part of a team that includes medical physicists, whose main role is one of quality assurance—checking that equipment is functioning properly and that calculations made by dosimetrists are correct. They may also develop new treatment techniques. And while medical physicists must go through a residency, dosimetrists complete specialized certificate programs and clinical training.

For Nyamwanda, it’s rewarding to create treatment plans that help to prolong lives and ease pain. “Every day, I’m impacting someone’s life,” she says.

In addition to her clinical practice, Nyamwanda serves as the graduate program director for medical dosimetry at Boston’s Suffolk University. In this multipronged role, Nyamwanda is able to teach what she practices, conduct research, and work with students in the clinic. She’s also involved in outreach, helping to spread the word about dosimetry. It’s a field that’s growing as the Baby Boomer generation ages, but it’s currently also experiencing a shortage of candidates, Nyamwanda says.

“It’s very hidden, both literally and figuratively,” she says, noting that radiation departments are often located in the basement of medical centers. But, she adds, word about the field is getting out.

For those interested in medical dosimetry, Nyamwanda says it’s essential to love physics and have an interest in helping people. It’s also important to have analytical and problem-solving skills, creativity, the ability to think in three dimensions—and a lot of patience. She recommends shadowing a professional or completing an internship in order to fully understand what’s required of the job. This is important whether considering a career in dosimetry or education.

“You have to really enjoy what you’re doing,” she says. “I love the job even when things get stressful. I’ve never had a bad day of work at the clinic.”