Watch: In a quest for more precise cancer care, hospitals invest in new tools — and new training, too
Hospitals invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into cutting-edge technologies. But those advances take more than just money or space — they can require weeks or even months of new…
BOSTON — On a recent Wednesday morning at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a team of two radiation therapists, a radiation oncologist, and a physicist sat glued to a screen filled with black-and-white scans of a torso, watching as the tissues shifted slightly with each breath.
But the cancer treatment team wasn’t imaging a real tumor. Instead they were looking at a healthy adrenal gland. The person in the machine wasn’t a patient with cancer, but an academic administrator. And to the relief of everyone involved, the machine wasn’t turned on all the way.
“I secretly stopped short. We’re not going to deliver any radiation
