Plan is Approved with Jeff and Jibin
Aug 21, 2026 · 41 min · 10 segments
Nursing and Dosimetry—a conversation about the people behind the plans, the calculations, and the care. In this episode, we explore the human connection between nursing and radiation dosimetry, and…
Kelsey KeenanGuestJibinHostJeffHostI guess going back to what Gail was saying before with all the Technology changes in the last few years.
We are in an age where we see a lot of SBRTs versus a conventionally fractured, meaning higher dose treatments.
How does that impact the patient from your perspective, from you seeing the patient? Is there more side effects, acute versus chronic? Is there late? You know, what I'm saying is like conventional, the two grade per fraction, you know, you might see results later down the line, side effects, but I feel like with these higher doses, are we seeing more impact right away? And how does that impact patients' day-to-day life?
I think sometimes you see the SBRT a little bit sooner, but sometimes you don't.
And that almost makes it trickier because when the patients are on traditional radiation and they're there for three to five weeks, the side effects may start around week two, three, and you're able to see them every day in the office or once a week on treatment to manage that.
But with SBRT, if they're having one, three or five treatments, then they're not in the department and their side effects start two weeks later.
So I think it's a little more anxiety provoking for patients because they don't have quite as much access, physical access to the care team as they did if they were there.
Okay.
I have a question for both of you.
You know, we were talking about coordination collaboration can you kind of walk me through or walk us through when when they're kind of going under chemo and trying to time radiation and kind of the proper handoffs because i know sometimes we schedule these patients like they gotta start chemo at this date and try to have these proper turnaround times but we're also trying to make sure that we're doing safely can you um walk us through and just the juggling you have to do to make sure that you know everything's all lined up in a row
We have the good fortune in our department to have a nurse navigator who does a lot of that coordination between our department and with chemotherapy, which is in our building or right across the hall.
So she helps to navigate these head and neck patients, which could be very complex and So, for example, they need to have their first dose of chemo on the first day of radiation.
And just trying to coordinate that and time it, we've now taken a much more proactive approach in letting them know.
I think now with our transition to Epic, it's been a little bit easier because our treatment schedules for the patients get automatically updated.
So they now have access, whereas before we were on ARIA and they did not have access to ARIA and the nurse navigator needed to take a much more proactive role in coordinating that.
But it's less so now because they do have access and being on Epic, as much as I want to say, It was a tough transition, but it certainly is helped with communication between the two disciplines.
Yeah, I think that I want to ask one more to that follow up to that is, you know, with this SPRTs and more advanced localized treatments, we're seeing a lot of re-radiation patient had prior treatments.
And I think one of the challenges for us in physics is that getting that prior treatment records if they were treated at an outside facility.
I guess going back to what Gail was saying before with all the Technology changes in the last few years.
We are in an age where we see a lot of SBRTs versus a conventionally fractured, meaning higher dose treatments.
How does that impact the patient from your perspective, from you seeing the patient? Is there more side effects, acute versus chronic? Is there late? You know, what I'm saying is like conventional, the two grade per fraction, you know, you might see results later down the line, side effects, but I feel like with these higher doses, are we seeing more impact right away? And how does that impact patients' day-to-day life?
I think sometimes you see the SBRT a little bit sooner, but sometimes you don't.
And that almost makes it trickier because when the patients are on traditional radiation and they're there for three to five weeks, the side effects may start around week two, three, and you're able to see them every day in the office or once a week on treatment to manage that.
But with SBRT, if they're having one, three or five treatments, then they're not in the department and their side effects start two weeks later.
So I think it's a little more anxiety provoking for patients because they don't have quite as much access, physical access to the care team as they did if they were there.
Okay.
I have a question for both of you.
You know, we were talking about coordination collaboration can you kind of walk me through or walk us through when when they're kind of going under chemo and trying to time radiation and kind of the proper handoffs because i know sometimes we schedule these patients like they gotta start chemo at this date and try to have these proper turnaround times but we're also trying to make sure that we're doing safely can you um walk us through and just the juggling you have to do to make sure that you know everything's all lined up in a row
We have the good fortune in our department to have a nurse navigator who does a lot of that coordination between our department and with chemotherapy, which is in our building or right across the hall.
So she helps to navigate these head and neck patients, which could be very complex and So, for example, they need to have their first dose of chemo on the first day of radiation.
And just trying to coordinate that and time it, we've now taken a much more proactive approach in letting them know.
I think now with our transition to Epic, it's been a little bit easier because our treatment schedules for the patients get automatically updated.
So they now have access, whereas before we were on ARIA and they did not have access to ARIA and the nurse navigator needed to take a much more proactive role in coordinating that.
But it's less so now because they do have access and being on Epic, as much as I want to say, It was a tough transition, but it certainly is helped with communication between the two disciplines.
Yeah, I think that I want to ask one more to that follow up to that is, you know, with this SPRTs and more advanced localized treatments, we're seeing a lot of re-radiation patient had prior treatments.
And I think one of the challenges for us in physics is that getting that prior treatment records if they were treated at an outside facility.
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