Research Organization Document

Phase I
The Research Basics lecture identified the following steps in beginning the research
process:
1. Select a philosophical foundation
2. Determine group interest
3. Research your interests and develop a research problem
4. Find a supporting problem/develop a theory base (literature review)
5. Develop scientific question/query and select a research design
In the discussion forum, you should have narrowed down your interests into a single topic.
This document will help you apply these essential steps to your capstone project topic.
1. What philosophical foundation are you pursuing? Why?
Naturalistic: finding out how the Covid-19 pandemic has effected dosimetrists across the
country and their perception of working remotely. This study would focus largely on the ways
Medical Dosimetrists have adapted their communication styles with the clinic as a remote
worker to complete the treatment planning process in an efficient manner.
2. What is your group interest? (This would be the high-level idea that you
listed/discussed in the discussion forum).
The Covid-19 Pandemic effect on Medical Dosimetrists. A unique situation that has forced
changes in the workplace environment of this field. This perhaps once in a lifetime event has
affected everyone in one way or another, so it would be interesting to find out the way it will
change the future of the Dosimetry work environment compared to how we once knew it.
3. Find a problem/develop a theory base. These concepts are combined because
both concepts support the idea that you need to determine what’s out there on your
particular interest/topic.
a. What is the problem related to your interest? List your working problem
statements below.
The Covid-19 Pandemic has changed the way people are working in some aspect of their
employment across the country. As Medical Dosimetry is a job that can be done almost
completely remote, the way in which Dosimetrists work has certainly changed and will likely be
changed forever in one way or another.
The problem is  that treatment planning was primarily performed on-site at a clinical setting,
but the  COVID-19 pandemic caused the job to suddenly change to a remote treatment planning
process requiring medical dosimetrists to work from home.    
 b. What knowledge exists on your interests and the problems you’ve come
up with?
i. Conduct a literature review on your topics. If You’ve identified a
potential high-level problem to solve but how do you know that
someone else hasn’t already researched this problem? This is the
purpose of a literature review. You need to find peer-reviewed
scholarly articles that support the need for your proposed research.
The pertinent articles that you find will be used to confirm or refute
the results of your study so the research must be current (5 years old
at the most). The only circumstance in which older articles should be
used is in the case of task group reports, QUANTEC or similar
monumental articles. List the most pertinent articles that you intend
to use to support your research in AMA formatting in this document.
Refer to this list often. (Note: you will be providing summaries of
these articles in a later assignment so it’s a good idea to hold on to
notes about each article now).
There are not many studies on how the pandemic is effecting Medical Dosimetrists as this is a
new problem beginning within the past year.
This article from 2020, talks about pandemic preparedness and giving remote access to
oncology staff. It was found that planning efficiency was increased, but likely due to decreased
patient loads as this study was completed at the very beginning of the pandemic while many
types of patient treatments were put on hold. This study does specifically focus on the amount
time spent working on different aspects of dosimetry during the implementation of their
“disaster plan” with staff working remotely.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32652862/
Riegel AC, Chou H, Baker J, Antone J, Potters L, Yijian C. Development and execution of a pandemic
preparedness plan: Therapeutic medical physics and radiation dosimetry during the COVID-19 crisis. J
Appl Clin Med Phys. 2020;21(9):259-265. http://doi.org/10.1002/acm2.12971.

ROILS is a program for event reporting so it may be beneficial to notice any potential increase
in safety event reporting pre pandemic vs. now. Communication errors between remote staff and
the clinic may play into potential areas for mistakes to occur. This in turn affects the efficiency
of the treatment planning process.
American Society for Radiation Oncology. Radiation oncology incident learning system:
aggregate data report quarter 4, 2020: Patient Safety Work Product.
The following article discusses the overall preparedness of the field of radiation oncology for an
event such as the pandemic which caused a mass shift to remote work as well as guidelines for
treatment procedures during such an event.
Simcock R, Thomas TV, Estes C, et al. COVID-19: Global radiation oncology's targeted
response for pandemic preparedness. Clin Transl Radiat Oncol. 2020; 20:55-68.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctro.2020.03.009.
A couple of recent surveys have been released through the AAMD or by other graduate students
regarding other aspects of the effect of the pandemic on Medical Dosimetry, but not to official
publication yet. In addition, we have not seen anything related to our specific topic of
communication and efficiency as it relates to mass remote work in the field.
4. What is the purpose of your study? This naturally falls in-line with the other
questions as you complete your literature review. What do you hope to find out
after you complete this research? What is the aim? These are all questions you
should ask yourselves.
The purpose of this study is to investigate perceptions of medical dosimetrists about the impact
of remote treatment planning on communication and efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic
and perspectives about remote employment post-pandemic.    
5. What are your supporting questions? Develop some key questions that your
reader will know the answer to after reading your research paper that support your
research problem. These questions should require elaboration (a simply stated
yes/no answer question is not permitted). For example:
a. Research Question: Where should our next coffee shop location be?
b. Supporting Questions: What customer base are we seeking?
(Q1) What impact has remote treatment planning had on communication during the COVID-19
pandemic?
How have remote workers had to adapt their communication styles to allow for seamless
movement through the treatment planning process without immediate access to colleagues?
Text, email, carepaths, digital whiteboards etc.
(Q2) What impact did remote treatment planning have on efficiency during the COVID-19
pandemic?
Was the treatment planning process more or less efficient when involving remote workers and
why? Does communication and technology lag time affect this as well?
(Q3) What are the perspectives from medical dosimetrists about remote treatment planning post-
pandemic?
How have the experiences of newly remote workers shaped the way the field may look in the
future when dosimetrists may be given the option of a clinical vs. remote position?
6. What type of research design are you interested in pursuing with this topic?
Some very basic information on each type (experimental/quantitative or
naturalistic/qualitative) was provided at the end of this week’s lecture. You will get
 more into the research design in the coming weeks but you should determine which
design you are going to pursue now.
Naturalistic (understanding and interpreting human experience).
Submit this document to the appropriate assignment area when instructed.