Canada Faces Shortage Of Radiation Therapists

Extract

Although the Canadian province of Ontario has sufficient radiation therapy facilities to meet patient demand, only a third of Ontarians who need this therapy are able to start it within 4 weeks of referral.

The chief reason for this bottleneck is a shortage of technicians—or radiation therapists as they are called in the U.S. and Canada—who staff the machines. According to Tom McGowan, M.D., of Cancer Care Ontario (the provincial government’s umbrella agency for cancer treatment), Ontario is experiencing rapid population growth. That growth—along with rising numbers of elderly— has contributed to the shortage by increasing the demand for radiotherapy by about 4% a year. But he termed “a change in educational policy” the immediate precipitating cause.

Until recently, Ontario trained its technicians through vocational training in diploma programs at cancer treatment centers. But McGowan, radiation treatment coordinator for his agency, explained that Ontario has been phasing out its diploma programs and replacing them with an academically more rigorous 3-year bachelor-level program to match training in other parts of the world. (The rest of Canada’s provinces are expected to follow suit.)