This month, we are thrilled to spotlight Diego Jurado Bruggeman, a dedicated medical physicist at the Instituto Català d'Oncologia in Spain. Diego serves as the medical physics coordinator of the radiotherapy department, ensuring seamless operations and collaboration among his team.
Watch the 5-minute interview from ESTRO here:
Or read the interview summary here:
The Instituto Català d'Oncologia is a network of three centers across different cities. "We are three centers, located in three cities around the country. I work specifically in Girona. In my department, we have SGRT―three Linacs―eleven overall, and we do 4D, SBRT... more or less everything."
Diego's team adopted Radformation's ClearCheck and EZFluence to streamline their workflow and enhance efficiency. Initially, their process was quite labor-intensive. When a physician prescribed a contour, the dosimetrists performed numerous manual checks for consistency and accuracy before planning the treatment. This involved extensive use of checklists and programmed scripts, making the process cumbersome and prone to errors. "ClearCheck helped us to be consistent and more efficient."
For breast treatments, EZFluence has been a game-changer. Previously, it was a manual process, but now Diego explains their straightforward process, "You just push the button, and everything is done the same way. And the results are excellent."
Diego elaborates on the integration and benefits of Radformation tools in his department. "It's very easy to work with Radformation. The scripts are very easily put into the system and upgraded automatically without disturbing the clinical scenario. And, Radformation is also very open to our suggestions and very open to implement anything that the customer asks for."
Regarding their favorite features and uses of ClearCheck, Diego comments, "The dosimetrists love it because they automatically check things that are very cumbersome to check, like the nomenclature of the contours, the consistency that the CTV is within the PTV, and the boost is within the main volume. So they love that. And we, the physicists, also love features like collision check. It's definitely a killer feature. So the collisions are, for instance, the table, you check automatically that the table is there and it's the right one for your machine. So we don't mix up things."
The team also finds automation helpful when forward planning. "We use EZFluence for 3D breast treatments regularly for all of them, and also for extremities systematically. The results are excellent, better or―in the worst case―they are equal to what the planner would do. But they are always consistent, done in the same way, and we are very happy with that."
Diego highly recommends ClearCheck and EZFluence to other oncology departments. "We absolutely recommend them. For ClearCheck, we recommend to think a lot about the templates before implementing them just because you want them to be multipurpose, but you also want to catch all the possible errors. So there's an interplay there, so think about it. But otherwise, it's very easy. Both ClearCheck and EZFluence are just click the button, and everything works from scratch. The dosimetrists are very happy with both of them."
Reflecting on a recent challenge, Diego shares, "Recently, we upgraded the version of ARIA and we had some troubles—not because of Radformation, but because of the integration and the upgrade. And so we spent two days without ClearCheck, without EZFluence. And we missed some things that we caught later."
When speaking about his life outside of work, Diego passionately shares, "Being with my family, doing anything with them - I love it. Hiking the mountains, going to restaurants, and being with the family."
Diego’s story highlights the human side of technology in healthcare - showing how the right tools can make a profound difference in professional efficiency and patient outcomes. His dedication and enthusiasm remind us that at the heart of every technological advancement are people striving to make a positive impact.