Maria Werner-Wasik, MD, Program Director
Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology

Thank you for your interest in our radiation oncology residency at Thomas Jefferson. You can be sure that cooperation and teamwork set the atmosphere at our program. We strive for continued growth and improvement based on feedback from our residents. As a hospital based service with a major academic role within the medical college, our department considers residency training among its most important academic functions.

Doctors-in-training complete our residency program as highly capable medical professionals. They achieve this status under the guidance of senior staff radiation oncologists and medical physicists.

Every day attending physicans and residents engage in one-to-one teaching and learning. Our programs will give you carefully structured academics and hands-on-experience with a high volume of patients from a population experiencing a broad range of cancers. Our department’s radiation program for cancer is one of the largest in the Delaware Valley, treating up to a hundred patients daily at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and up to 60 at our largest affiliated facility at Frankford Torresdale Hospital, and giving up to 60,000 radiation therapy treatments at those facilities annually.

Your work as a radiation oncology resident will save and extend the lives of your patients. The multi-disciplinary programs coordinated through the Jefferson’s Kimmel Cancer Center and predominantly housed at the Bodine Center for Cancer Treatment continue to expand. Currently, we run clinics in genitourinary; thoracic/head and neck; as well as central nervous system tumors.  In addition, several multidisciplinary conferences take place each week.

To further expand the exposure of our residents, the department recently initiated a rotation in gynecologic radiation oncology at Washington University in St. Louis and a pediatric radiation oncology rotation at St. Jude Hospital. Our residents completing this rotation have had outstanding clinical experiences. We have also launched a fellowship in neuro-oncologic aspects of radiation oncology.

Today, technological upgrades are significantly changing our treatment planning and delivery. Jefferson staff and residents selectively analyze the relative benefits of these new tools so that we can advise our colleagues and community.

Our department is also rich in research experience and activity. Residents interested in research are sure to gain involvement in clinical, translational, or basic science research projects. Together with the faculty, our residents have a long tradition of presentation at national meetings and peer-reviewed publications.

In our residency program, you are guaranteed honest two-way feedback and extensive contact with the faculty on interdisciplinary cancer teams. You will have an opportunity to work with outstanding surgeons and medical oncologists. Learning also comes from experienced oncology nurses, technical staff, and scientists in our department and throughout the university.

Watching our trainees progress from their first through their fourth year, as they exercise increasing responsibilities and mature into effective and caring radiation oncologists, brings us great satisfaction. We can say with assurance that by the end of your fourth year, you will be ready to assume staff responsibilities.

Ours is a progressive, dynamic department with a commitment to training fine radiation oncologists in a tradition that has made Jefferson one of the leading institutions in this field. Our graduates are equally distributed in community and academic settings, including major medical centers around the country.  Their successes continue to reaffirm our approach.