Anatomy, Radiology, Contouring, & All the Desserts

I got to spend part of last week in London, Ontario at Anatomy, Radiology, and Contouring Bootcamp, a three-day course for radiation oncology residents.

It was such a great course! We had lectures by radiation oncologists, radiologists, surgeons, and anatomists, and lots of hands-on contouring and cadaveric anatomy sessions (never would've thought after 4th-year med school that I'd see a cadaver again).

contouring = circling normal structures and tumour on CT or MRI

The best part was how enthusiastic everyone was -- from the rad oncs, who divided us into teams with nerdy names (we were the positrons -- and we won!); to the anatomists, who ran Family Feud games for us to win team points (/learn anatomy); to the residents, who came from as far away as the US, Brazil, and England, leading to lots of interesting conversations on what rad onc life is like around the world.

Hanging out with new and old resident and medical physicist friends all week, I felt so grateful to be part of this specialty. It's nice to be around people who get your jam, and it's reassuring to realize that you're not the only one who can't for the life of them contour the brachial plexus.

Plus the leadership centre that the course was held at was amazing -- we each had a hotel room just down the hall from the lecture theatre and were fed incredible breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and alllll the snacks in between. Since being home it's been a tough adjustment to not having a choice of six desserts after every meal. Even more difficult has been returning to plain old, not sparkling, not fruit-infused, water. The struggle is real.

one of the lunches...that in the background is poutine -- they had a poutine bar!

one of the dinners

one of the snack bars -- s'mores and sour keys!

On our last evening the restaurant set up a "chocolate challenge" for us, which involved constructing something from graham crackers, marshmallows, candy, etc in 45 minutes. Ours won! Probably for originality -- we built a cancer centre with aliens, instead of a wall with Trump and Hillary like the other three groups.

the materials

the creations

winner!

Finally, London (what little we saw of it) was beautiful. Coming from Edmonton, where it was snowing on the morning I left and they had to de-ice the plane, seeing Ontario fall in full swing was a treat. The grounds of the leadership centre were really pretty.

the Ivey Spencer Leadership Centre

What a great week. I think everyone left with renewed inspiration for learning!