The newly-formed Working Group for Non-Clinical Professionals (WGNC) is tasked with addressing the professional needs of non-clinical medical physicists (Professional Council | Professional Services Committee | Working Group for Non-Clinical Professionals). This cohort includes medical physicists in industry, regulatory, research, and academic careers. As the number of professionals from these cohorts increases in our membership, the Association is focused on being proactive to address their needs. The contribution of non-clinical medical physicists is significant to our field and the Association wishes to provide the essential foundation of support to all tracts of medical physics.

The group comprises AAPM members from each of the involved cohorts. This also includes Student and Junior members, who are critical in providing the unique perspective of the current educational tract and possible limitations being faced when entering or after entering non-clinical professional pathways. Additionally, a majority of the WGNC members had a start in clinical physics, giving a unique perspective to challenges that upcoming medical physicist may face in the future when choosing a non-clinical career path—even when transitioning from the clinic.

Collaboration with currently existing committees and groups will be critical to realize the outlined charge of the WGNC. One such group is the Working Group to Promote Non-Clinical Career Paths for Medical Physicists [WGNCMP], under the "parent" Student and Trainees Subcommittee. While the charge of this group is distinct from the WGNC, our goals are parallel in our focus on the non-clinical career pathways. The WGNCMP is working to promote pathways for current students and trainees to become involved in non-clinical medical physics while the WGNC is focused on addressing the needs of currently employed non-clinical medical physics professionals.

The charge of the WGNC includes tasks such as: identify AAPM activities and provide additional resources to serve the needs of non-clinical medical physicists; recommend methods to increase the number of such professionals joining and maintaining membership within the AAPM; promote leadership development for non-clinical medical physicists, both within AAPM and the workplace; and to identify obstacles in membership contribution and MOC that may disproportionately affect medical physicists in non-clinical careers. To view a detailed list of the charge of the Working Group for Non-Clinical Professionals, we invite you to visit the WGNC webpage.

If you have any tasks you wish for the Working Group to address, or would like to get involved in some way, please contact the Working Group Chair, Christine Gnaster, via email at cgnaster@yahoo.com.