CMD study guide
CMD · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The CMD (Certified Medical Dosimetrist) credential is awarded by the Medical Dosimetrist Certification Board (MDCB), an independent board whose stated mission is "to steer the advancement of the Medical Dosimetry profession by establishing certification and continuing education standards to enhance quality patient care." The credential is aimed at dosimetrists who plan and calculate radiation treatment doses and need a recognized, verifiable professional standard; MDCB also runs a Maintenance of Certification process that requires continuing professional development and publishes a public CMD verification tool. The MDCB Certification Exam is the entry point to that credential. Its published navigation groups the exam under topics such as exam development, exam scoring, exam results, eligibility, the application, exam dates and fees, testing center regulations, special accommodations, and international policy - so candidates should treat the Applicant Handbook, Applicant Checklist, and Eligibility pages as core reading before applying. For preparation, MDCB states that it "makes available a practice test to be used as a study aid for the MDCB Certification Exam," and the site lists a Practice Tests page alongside the CE Center and Certification Handbook. Topics on this exam: Medical Dosimetry (domain list not enumerated in source). The CMD study guide has 1 section and about 2,470 words.
01Clinical Oncology, Anatomy, and Radiobiology for the Dosimetrist
Domain 1 covers clinical oncology, cross-sectional anatomy and radiobiology as they appear at the planning console. The exam rarely asks you to diagnose; it asks whether you can turn a prescription, a stage and a set of organ-at-risk tolerances into a defensible plan, and whether you notice when a hypofractionated schedule changes what a quoted tolerance actually means. T and N stage set both the gross and the elective volume. In head and neck, gross disease often receives 70 Gy while elective nodal levels receive 50–54 Gy in 2 Gy fractions; in prostate, T stage, PSA and Gleason score decide whether pelvic nodes are covered.
2,470 words, about 12 min