DOS 751: Research Methods in Medical Dosimetry III
Course Description
This course follows in sequence with the Research Methods II courses and serves as the concluding research course. Through a series of peer reviews and editing, guided by individualized instruction students prepared for final draft of their research paper. By the end of the course the student’s final paper was prepared and formatted for submission to the AAMD’s Medical Dosimetry journal.
Assessment
Students were guided by instructor feedback and writing templates. These resources provided students guidance for revising the latest draft from Research Methods II and help evolve it into their final draft. Feedback and guidance on the various drafts submitted during this course were provided by two instructors. Each draft was given a grade based on the students use of instructor guidance in editing their paper. Students also received a grade based on a series of participation evaluations provided by their research patterners and in combination with the instructor’s participation evaluation.
Course Project
As our research project, my partners and I decided to test collimator angle pairs when used in 2 arc VMAT prostate plans. A previous study had suggested that certain collimator pairs would make 2 arc VMAT prostate plans more superior because of their specific angles. We tested this hypothesis and several other paired collimator angles. You can find our final draft below.
Does an “Ideal” Collimator Pair Exis for 2 Arc VMAT Prostate Plans?
Self-Reflection
After each course students are asked to take a moment and self-reflect on what they gained during the course and how it affected their education and growth.
The new knowledge and skills I gained during this course were how to become more comfortable with the style of writing required in medical journals. As the project progressed, I became better with my grammar and sentence structure.
The new knowledge and skills will benefit me through my career as a medical dosimetrist if I am to come across plans that are to be completed for research. I will already be familiar with the process and guidelines.
I struggle with research as a whole. I am grateful we were able to work in small groups for this project. It helped to take some of the pressure off of the project as a whole and also allowed for others who are familiar with the research to be a sounding board for ideas and concerns during the process.
I feel pretty good about the overall quality of the paper we created as a group. When we were first presented with this project, it was seemingly impossible to complete. However, with small steps and a lot of group phone calls and text messages we accomplished our goal.
Other reflective thoughts. The hardest part of this project was finding a topic that needs to be covered and has gaps in research that you need to fill in. Then it’s even harder to find a topic that matches these categories and you are interested or passionate about, much less all 4 group members are interested in. I found this part of the project the most interesting part that 4 of us found a topic to research within a couple of weeks, after just meeting and living all across the United States.
Course Description
This course follows in sequence with the Research Methods II courses and serves as the concluding research course. Through a series of peer reviews and editing, guided by individualized instruction students prepared for final draft of their research paper. By the end of the course the student’s final paper was prepared and formatted for submission to the AAMD’s Medical Dosimetry journal.
Assessment
Students were guided by instructor feedback and writing templates. These resources provided students guidance for revising the latest draft from Research Methods II and help evolve it into their final draft. Feedback and guidance on the various drafts submitted during this course were provided by two instructors. Each draft was given a grade based on the students use of instructor guidance in editing their paper. Students also received a grade based on a series of participation evaluations provided by their research patterners and in combination with the instructor’s participation evaluation.
Course Project
As our research project, my partners and I decided to test collimator angle pairs when used in 2 arc VMAT prostate plans. A previous study had suggested that certain collimator pairs would make 2 arc VMAT prostate plans more superior because of their specific angles. We tested this hypothesis and several other paired collimator angles. You can find our final draft below.
Does an “Ideal” Collimator Pair Exis for 2 Arc VMAT Prostate Plans?
Self-Reflection
After each course students are asked to take a moment and self-reflect on what they gained during the course and how it affected their education and growth.
The new knowledge and skills I gained during this course were how to become more comfortable with the style of writing required in medical journals. As the project progressed, I became better with my grammar and sentence structure.
The new knowledge and skills will benefit me through my career as a medical dosimetrist if I am to come across plans that are to be completed for research. I will already be familiar with the process and guidelines.
I struggle with research as a whole. I am grateful we were able to work in small groups for this project. It helped to take some of the pressure off of the project as a whole and also allowed for others who are familiar with the research to be a sounding board for ideas and concerns during the process.
I feel pretty good about the overall quality of the paper we created as a group. When we were first presented with this project, it was seemingly impossible to complete. However, with small steps and a lot of group phone calls and text messages we accomplished our goal.
Other reflective thoughts. The hardest part of this project was finding a topic that needs to be covered and has gaps in research that you need to fill in. Then it’s even harder to find a topic that matches these categories and you are interested or passionate about, much less all 4 group members are interested in. I found this part of the project the most interesting part that 4 of us found a topic to research within a couple of weeks, after just meeting and living all across the United States.