@surftohealth88
The thing is, there’s nothing for the radiation oncologist to do once you come in to have the radiation done. Maybe in this MRI situation there’s An exception because they watch what’s going on in a real time basis.

For almost all radiation done with IMRT or SBRT the technicians are given the exact instructions for what to do. I suspect the machines are preloaded with all of the technical information that the RO has decided on. This is something that computers are designed for. An RO would set up the plan in the computer and technicians would have it load into the radiation machine, when the patient was ready to be radiated. Not much room for screw ups, they follow exactly what the RO has programmed. They even know whether or not there’s enough liquid in your bladder Because they do a CT scan just before they do the radiation. I bet the machine even tells them If the quantity of liquid is not correct. All this has to be automated. As a result, the RO has nothing to do. When I had SBRT on my spine The RO didn’t talk to me until the end of the last session. He definitely was not in the room. Same when I have 40+ IMRT sessions, Though I didn’t hear from the RO until days later, after the last session was done.

@surftohealth88

That is a great idea and I had been looking into that since proton therapy is supposed to cause minimal damage to surrounding tissues.. The challenge is there are very few medical institutions with proton equipment due to its huge cost. In our area, I only know of Loma Linda, and a little further : UC San Diego. But for something as important as this, distance shouldn’t be a shop stopper, so I will continue to explore proton therapy for potential adjuvant or salvage radiation therapy. I will also look into UCLA’s acclaimed (non-proton) radiation therapy program under renowned Dr. Amar Kishan.

A lot to investigate….