 Mentor Profiles - Heather Warkentin
My mentee
this year commented that through her interaction with me, she has learned that it is possible to balance a career with family and that, although I work hard, I do have a 'life'!
-Mentor
Heather Warkentin has been a medical physicist at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton for over a decade and still loves the challenges and opportunities that her work presents. The transplanted Torontonian says one of the most satisfying aspects of her career has been having the autonomy to carve her own professional niche.
“I really like the fact that we don’t have anyone telling us what we’re supposed to specialize in; it’s up to us to find a need at the clinic and fill it. When I first started, I was a good 10 years younger than the most junior staff member, so I ended up doing a lot of ‘joe jobs’ that no one else wanted to do,” Heather recalls. “But as the years went on, I realized that I needed to figure out what I wanted for myself.”
Today, Heather works with the latest technology to improve radiation therapy for cancer patients. She is also Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Oncology at the University of Alberta.
“The freedom to explore opportunities is one of the things that’s so great about working here. I couldn’t be happier to have found a niche that I enjoy.”
What does a medical physicist do?
Medical physicists tend to specialize in three different areas: medical imaging, nuclear medicine and radiation oncology, which is what I do. At the Cross Cancer Institute, the group of medical physicists I work with are given the opportunity to do research, offer clinical support as well as teach graduate students, residents and radiation therapy technologists. Teaching is a part of my job that I really enjoy.
Where is most of your time spent?
I would say that about 80 per cent of my focus is on doing clinical support. For my specialty, an important aspect of this is making sure that the treatment machines are always delivering the correct dose of radiation to the patient, which means doing quality assurance work on the linear accelerators and radioisotope machines. I do a lot of treatment planning support: the physicians will decide what part of the patient’s body requires radiation and how much dose to deliver and it’s part of my job to help figure out how to get it there.
Can you give an example of a treatment problem you’d be asked to help to solve?
Sure. Breast cancer is very commonly treated with radiation therapy. We have standard treatment techniques that work well for the average-sized woman, but what happens when a patient is very large, very small or has anatomy that is somehow considered to be outside the norm? Part of my job is to figure out how best to deliver the radiation, which may mean a change of position, bringing in the beam at a different angle or trying out a new piece of equipment.
How did you decide that medical physics was the branch of engineering for you?
I chose engineering physics because it combined elements of nuclear and biomedical engineering. I liked nuclear engineering because I thought it was cool that radiation, a naturally occurring phenomenon, could be harnessed and used for good. But I also leaned toward biomedical engineering because it applies science to the human experience and I liked the idea that my work could have a direct impact on people. It’s interesting; I find that girls who go into medical physics are drawn to it because as females, we tend to be naturally interested in the human aspect.
Was science your strongest subject in school?
(Laughs) I liked it and I did well in school but I wasn’t particularly interested in it. In high school, math was my favourite subject. When I was looking at university programs, I had to figure out if I wanted to go into the arts or the sciences. Eventually, I decided to go into engineering because, from a purely practical standpoint, I was pretty much guaranteed a job after graduation. That’s just where my head was at the time.
You have a family arrangement that blends work and home. How do you balance both?
I actually met my husband here at the clinic and we continue to work together – he has the desk almost right next to mine. It’s great, but we try to institute a rule not to talk about work at home after a certain point of the evening! We have a two-and-a-half year old son whose daycare is on campus. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was to live near work and that has definitely helped us strike a balance. In the morning, we walk the dog, push our son to daycare in the stroller, then walk to work. It’s so nice to live nearby and not have to worry about traffic.
What does being part of Cybermentor mean to you?
It’s a lot of fun talking to the girls to find out what they’re interested in and then helping them to explore the possibilities. I remember what it’s like to be in Grade 11 – it’s difficult to know what your options are. So even if they’re not interested in my particular field, I can still help them branch out and discover what they want to do, what kind of programs they can apply for in university and where that could take them in the future.
|