Career Stories at PTW

I already found physics lessons very fascinating when I was at school. After high school graduation, I initially fluctuated between studying medicine and physics. When researching the possibilities in these areas, I finally came across the medical physics course of study at Martin-Luther University in Halle. This was the perfect combination of the two subjects for me.

When I started working at PTW, I investigated a new trend in dosimetry. I dealt with the relevant technology, conducted extensive literature research, met with research groups and analyzed customer needs. It was a question of finding out whether we would like to develop and offer such a product at PTW. Based on my results, PTW has decided that we will move in this direction.

The second project was about high-precision radiation therapy, i.e., stereotaxy. I developed the first prototypes for the stereotactic QA phantom “Ruby”, which we launched in early 2020.

I find it exciting to investigate new technologies. I greatly appreciate having the time and the freedom to deal with them intensively and to meet and exchange ideas with international research groups and experts from hospitals. A lot of initiative and creativity is required, which I like a lot.

I received an insight into the daily routine of a hospital during my internships when I was studying at the university. The work in a hospital is demanding, but at the same time it is characterized by routine and sometimes shift work. That's why my first choice was to work in industry and develop medical devices after I received my Ph.D.

I like the high demands of PTW on precision and on achieving high measuring accuracy. In my view, this is very valuable and I can identify very well with it.

I think it's great that all departments as well as the production are located in and around Freiburg, so you can interact directly with all your colleagues and be very productive.
There is an informal atmosphere with flat hierarchies. This makes everyday life very pleasant.
At PTW, I also have a relatively large amount of flexibility in terms of working hours. This makes it much easier for me to reconcile family and work and to continue to pursue a demanding career.

I was generally aware of the tasks that a medical physicist has in radiation therapy or research. On the other hand, I did not know much about the possibilities for medical physicists in industry. I could imagine that it is the same for others. I regularly attended conferences at that time, for example the annual meeting of the German Society for Medical Physics. At the industrial exhibition, I asked the exhibitors directly about job opportunities for medical physicists in their companies. I have learned a lot in that way and would recommend it to others. That can not only create an opportunity for an internship, but such contacts can also be worth their weight in gold when you search for a position in a company.

The field of study of medical physics did not exist when I chose a major at the university. That’s why I started working on a ‘normal’ physics major. It was only during my Ph.D. studies that I came into contact with medical physics due to a disease in my family environment. As a result, I became familiar with radiation therapy and learned that physicists are also employed in this area. This was the starting point of my personal interest in medical physics, because this application fascinated me right from the start. Parallel to my Ph.D. studies, I then began a correspondence course in “Medical Physics and Technology” at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern.

During my Ph.D. studies, I already received an offer to get training as a medical physics expert in radiation therapy at Frankfurt University Hospital. I worked in hospitals for a total of 15 years, the last nine years until 2012 as a senior medical physicist in radiation therapy in Hanau City Hospital. Then came a time when I wanted to leave the hospital to apply my clinical experience to the development of measuring equipment for quality assurance. Since I had worked with PTW products throughout my entire medical physicist career, I already knew them very well and was pleased to be offered a job at PTW.

I started at PTW as a product specialist. After three years, I took over as a sales manager for the USA and Canada. During that time, I discovered that I actually cared much more about the clinical application and explaining our products. I had already taught radiographers and medical technologists (“MTRA”) at the university hospital, so the idea crossed my mind to set up an application team at PTW to support our customers and provide internal training for our sales team as well as our application specialists in our branch offices  worldwide. Management considered it a good idea, and now I've been in charge of the “Education and Training” Department since the beginning of 2020. Responsibilities not only include developing educational and training content, but also optimizing technical implementation. Both on-site training events as well as online demos and training sessions, webinars, tutorials and podcasts are now part of our repertoire. The work is very varied, since organizing events is also part of the tasks.

Above all, I like the fact that I am very free in my decisions and that I can contribute many of my own ideas and also implement ideas from co-workers. I have few restrictions in this context. I still appreciate contact with customers. I enjoy working with and helping colleagues from hospitals, most of whom I still know well from my time working there. I like the connection between everyday hospital life and the use of our products at a high level.

In a hospital, I was always fascinated by applied physics and the fact that you can help to optimize the treatment of the patients together with doctors. On the other hand, individual confrontation with patients can be very stressful in the long term, especially when you don’t succeed in helping them.

The motivation of a medical device manufacturer is to optimize their products so they are much easier to use and actually fulfill the requirements and tasks in a hospital. This requires not only technical and physical knowledge and understanding, but also constant feedback from hospitals. A very nice aspect of this is to work in a group in which all parties collaborate and do not work against each other because there are different interests.

I greatly appreciate the flat hierarchies as well as the strong communication and the short decision paths. In addition, I like my co-workers. We are a very good team at PTW, and it is a great pleasure to work there.

You need hospital experience first. Therefore, I would definitely recommend working in a hospital for a few years before embarking on a career in industry. Hospital experience is an essential aspect of a medical physicist. If you have not been able to breathe this air, you cannot really sense what the actual needs and necessities in a hospital are. You have to understand the language of a hospital to find out where the problems are.