Rethink Imaging

EP 34 • December 18, 2025

Hospitals Must Outsource Med Physics? The Truth About Healthcare’s Last Fragmented Frontier

Featured Guest

Jason Schneck

CEO • OnePhysics

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Medical physics is one of the last corners of healthcare that has not consolidated, and Jason Schneck expects that to change fast. The OnePhysics CEO joins Chris St. John to explain how care moving out of hospitals and into outpatient imaging centers, surgery centers, and ambulatory sites broke the traditional in-house staffing model. When a physicist who once covered a single building now has to cover a state’s worth of sites running X-ray, CT, and C-arms, something has to give. Schneck argues outsourcing is not a stopgap. It is the same trend that already reshaped biomed services, diagnostic imaging, and radiology groups.

The conversation takes the workforce shortage head-on: a master’s degree from an accredited program, a two-year residency minimum, requirements that shift when you cross state lines, and an aging generation of physicists whose knowledge has to transfer before it walks out the door. Schneck describes how OnePhysics funds seven to eight residency programs, brings international physicists in through structured mentorship, and pushes advocacy through AAPM, CAMPEP, and ABR boards. He also gets into theranostics, where treatments like Pluvicto and Lutathera are pulling diagnostic and therapy physics together, and makes the case that scale gives the profession a bigger voice with regulators.

Host

Chris St. John

Host, Rethink Imaging • Imalogix

Featured Guest

Jason Schneck

CEO • OnePhysics

Watch the Episode

Key Takeaways

Medical physics is one of healthcare’s last fragmented segments. State-by-state regulation slowed the consolidation that already swept insurance, providers, biomed services, and radiology groups, but Schneck says the shift is now underway and inevitable.
The outpatient shift broke the old staffing model. Systems like Ascension and HCA have built hundreds of ambulatory centers, and an in-house physicist who once covered one building cannot reasonably cover a state’s worth of sites running X-ray, CT, and C-arms.
Scale changes what a physics group can see and do. OnePhysics has 250-plus clinicians, serves as radiation safety officer at more than 500 facilities, runs thousands of tests a year across every OEM, and can route unusual equipment questions to internal subject matter experts.
Theranostics is collapsing the wall between diagnostic and therapy physics. Radiopharmaceuticals like Pluvicto, which treats advanced prostate cancer that would have meant hospice three years ago, demand a different radiation safety approach than most in-house teams have seen.
The pipeline problem starts before the master’s degree. Becoming a physicist takes an accredited master’s plus at least a two-year residency, with extra requirements when you change states. OnePhysics funds seven to eight residency programs and runs structured mentorship for international physicists.

Full Transcript

Jason Schneck Transcript

[00:00:00] Chris St John: Care has moved out of the inpatient environment and moved into shopping malls and outpatient imaging and outpatient surgery centers and ambulatory care. Right? Care has gone outside and it lives on every corner. And that has required a more mobile workforce where you’ve gotta really apply not only medical physics, but also radiation safety services.

[00:00:22] Jason Schneck: Welcome to Frame by Frame Rethink Imaging, a podcast by Imologix. Here, we explore the intricate world of medical imaging, aiming to dissect the field and inspire both of us. Curious minds of life. Imaging. My guest today is Jason Schneck, the CEO of One Physics. Jason brings nearly three decades of leadership experience in health care, including senior roles at GE Healthcare and CAE Healthcare. At One Physics, he’s leading the company growth as a national provider of outsourced medical physics services. He has a front row view of how consolidation, outsourcing, and workforce shortages are reshaping the physics profession and what it means for hospitals, staff, and patients. Jason, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

[00:01:05] Chris St John: Chris, thanks for having me on the show. I think it’s great platform that you’ve created here for all things imaging related and and certainly all the dynamics that we have in the space today. So it’s a great platform and super excited to be with you this morning.

[00:01:18] Jason Schneck: Hell, yeah. I’m super excited to talk to you. So if we just take a step back, I’ve been having lots of conversations about the staffing crisis with radiologists, techs, medical physicists. So when you take a step back and look at the physics landscape right now, what do you think most people would be surprised by the current landscape?

[00:01:38] Chris St John: Yeah. A couple of things. I I would say I for twenty five years before I joined one physics, I worked alongside of the physicist space. So I was very close to it, but not necessarily in medical physics directly. So I have a little bit of a an inside and an outside view of of what I’ve learned here over the last eighteen months as I I’ve been CEO of the company here. The first thing I would say is I think it’s largely under recognized or underappreciated the role that medical physics plays in the health care care environment. Right? It’s fundamentally, it’s about patient safety and ensuring a safe environment for patients and for clinicians. And if I think if you talk to, like, a regular a regular patient that goes in to get a CT scan, they don’t even understand the role that medical physics plays in ensuring the radiation that comes out of the system is safe and they’re not being overradiated, that the image quality is right so they can diagnose at at the right level. So, one, I just think it’s under recognized and underappreciated at an industry level by both patients and and even sometimes providers. Second thing I would offer is industry has remained fairly fragmented. It’s one of the last kind of probably spaces within the healthcare that has not consolidated at the rate that other things have. The complex regulatory environment certainly enables that, but it’s certainly more fragmented than I anticipated it would be. Obviously, we start to see that change. We play a role in that from a company level, but but certainly, there’s a level of fragmentation that you don’t see across other parts of of of healthcare. The third thing I would say, Chris, is there’s some fundamental tailwinds within imaging and radiology that are really good for the industry. So if you look at just the increase in advanced imaging that’s taking place, more CT, more full body PET, molecular imaging, really growing at an outstanding rate. That is all very good for medical physics. You have expansion into theargnostics and advanced therapies like Pluvicto and Lutathera that are really bringing both kind of the radiology side and the oncology of medical physics together. So all these things are really good growth indicators for the industry.

[00:03:43] Jason Schneck: Can I can I follow-up? You said that the industry is more fragmented than you initially thought it would be. Why did you think it would be less fragmented than its current state? Like, where did that shift occur?

[00:03:55] Chris St John: Yeah. If you look at every other aspect of of health care for the most part, consolidation is happening at a rapid pace. Right? So on the insurance side, on the provider side, on most other ancillary and even clinical services, you see mass consolidation to try to build scale. Because of the complex regulatory environment and the role that states play in medical physics, it’s really slowed that down.

[00:04:20] Jason Schneck: Right.

[00:04:20] Chris St John: Now I I’m a believer that it’s inevitable that it that it will change, and we’re starting to see that change happen. And I think that that can be a really positive thing for the industry. But, certainly, it has lagged some of the other professions and other trends that we see in health care that are where consolidation is very, very much accelerating.

[00:04:40] Jason Schneck: Right. And so I feel I mean, I feel like the debate between, like, outsource and insource physics sounds like a business decision, but it also has, like, industry wide repercussions. How would you explain the divide to folks?

[00:04:54] Chris St John: Yeah. I wouldn’t really call it a a divide. I think I mean, if you look at most most parts of of health care, whether it’s radiologists and and and reading imaging, or whether it’s biomed services or diagnostic and imaging services, you have a mix of both across most of those industries. You have some in house physicians, you have some kind of partner outsource physician relationships. So that is very common across healthcare, I think, for those two dynamics to live in harmony. I kind of view it as a good thing for the industry as it gives medical physicists a choice. Right? Do I want to work in academia or teaching? Do I want to work in research? Do I want to be a system wide chief physicist or radiation safety officer? But most health care systems have in house and outsourced staff that do different things and bring different things to the table. So, I think the collaboration that occurs at that level is super important for the industry. And really, it’s natural if you look at all the other aspects of care delivery, that there is some insourcing and outsourcing that takes place to provide the best possible care.

[00:06:00] Jason Schneck: Right. It’s interesting you say that because, like, for forgive my naivete. I mean, my listeners know at this point that I’m still new to this world. But in my mind on paper, like, insource and outsourced physicists theoretically are delivering close to the same services, accreditation, compliance, safety. But, like, in practice, you’re saying that they are providing different serve like, where can you explain that a bit to me?

[00:06:23] Chris St John: Yeah. So, I mean, if I’m a large, like, health system, either regionalized or nationalized, I’m probably gonna have, like, a national radiation safety officer or a chief diagnostic physicist or chief therapy physicist that provides oversight and guidance for the entire program across the entire healthcare system. But what has happened is, as care has moved out of the inpatient environment and moved into shopping malls and outpatient imaging and outpatient surgery centers and ambulatory care, right? Care has gone outside and it lives on every corner. And that has required a more mobile workforce where you’ve got to really apply not only medical physics, but also radiation safety services in a number of different locations. And that is not inherent to maybe a traditional in house physics group. It’s more towards a mobile kind of workforce that can get out, service all those locations, and support, like, a national program that a healthcare system may set up. So the other advantage I would say is we do thousands of tests on an annual basis. So we see every piece of equipment from every manufacturer. We know the idiosyncrasies. We have relationships with the OEMs where we can call them for help and support and guidance. So we see the everything across the board. If you work in an in house organization that is maybe more OEM specific to one of the big OEM or medtech providers, or you haven’t dealt with complexities of, like, a Pluvicto from a radiopharmaceutical standpoint in your environment, that is new to you. Whereas we deal in those environments on a daily basis and provide great guidance and advice and consulting around some of those different dynamics that may not be present in a in a day to day hospital or health setting.

[00:08:11] Jason Schneck: Yeah. So, I mean, what I’ve I’ve heard there’s a lot of discourse going on about this. Right? What would you say to the folks who potentially see outsourced physicists as, like, not quite to the same level of service?

[00:08:25] Chris St John: Yeah. I mean, that’s certainly not something I agree with. I think we have we have some of the we have some of the best physicists, I think, in the country on our team. I think it’s a matter of choice. Right? Like, uh, the the good thing about diversity in the profession, and I think one of the things that we’re really strongly advocating for, is to give people an opportunity of what their career path looks like. And some people, like I said, wanna work in academia and wanna work in research, and that will always be a function of a large academic health care system. Some people want, again, to be like a a staff physicist or a chief physicist, sometimes in an academic environment, and that’s great. Other folks wanna be involved in testing and calibration, are very passionate about policies and regulatory environment, and they wanna be more involved there. Other people wanna get into leadership roles within organizations. So having in house and outsourced medical physics and having all these different pathways that give people an opportunity to pursue their passion, to pursue their passion in the right way, and maybe what they’re really good at, I think is a really positive thing for the industry. And I also think it’s inevitable. It’s one of those things like, change is gonna happen. You can either, like, lead it and be part of it, or you can be a victim to it and and kinda just have to follow along. We wanna advocate for positive change and make sure that there will always be a balance of in source versus outsource, and we think we bring a really valuable skill set to the medical physics space and to the radi radiation safety environment.

[00:09:54] Jason Schneck: Yeah. So, I mean, I like what you’re saying about about giving folks agency and, like, choosing choosing their own internal pathways. And so that makes me think, like, when you are brought in as a third party physics provider, how how are you structuring that relationship? Are they choosing from a menu of services? Is it a it’s a proactive partnership? Are you assigning specific physicists? Like, how does that relationship work?

[00:10:17] Chris St John: Yeah. And and and I would start with one thing. I mean, both like, across diagnostic imaging and therapy physics, it operates very differently. So certainly, on the therapy side where you’re working more closely with dosimetrists and with oncologists, it’s more of a nested model. We spend much more time on-site, and we’re more integrated into those care teams on a daily basis. It’s a different environment. On the diagnostic side, again, the relationship can be very transactional, where it’s a fee for service environment, all the way up through where we manage comprehensive medical physics programs for acute care, hospitals, for IDNs, for outpatient imaging groups across the board. So our goal is to always be able to change and be flexible. So as a customer’s environment changes or their footprint changes, we wanna be able to evolve with them and continue to provide support at whatever level they might need. So I think that that’s that’s very important to say. We always start every relationship with what do you need. Like, what what do you need and kinda what’s your perspective on things? And there’s a lot of back and forth collaboration and guidance that we provide in how do you really structure the environment where where the relationship within the right parameters that the customer has, whether that’s from a patient care standpoint, a regulatory standpoint, radiation safety, testing and calibration, accreditation, all of those things come into play, and, certainly, economics is is a piece of it.

[00:11:45] Jason Schneck: Yeah. What do you need is such an interesting question, I feel like, in this larger context. I this not to sound shady or anything. Obviously, like, the economics of this are a big piece, but, like, have you ever come across health systems that are potentially underinvesting or looking just to check the box and move on with their lives rather than trying to actually rather than choosing what they need for maximum safety?

[00:12:12] Chris St John: Yes. I think I I think we do. Right? And and Yeah. I’m I think that’s the importance of of what we do and and why we’ve kinda worked very hard to build a wing to wing comprehensive medical physics provider radiation safety organization because a lot of organizations don’t see the interconnectedness between all these different functions that they need to to satisfy from accreditation, from an imaging standpoint, accreditation on on the therapy side, radiation safety, expansion of molecular imaging. Like, there is really a flywheel here that is very interconnected, and often, hospitals may manage those things in silos, and then they miss the connected tissue that really exists between them. So we have a lot of very healthy debates. Everyone has sometimes different opinions on how things one, regulation should be interpreted or what is quote, unquote, the correct way to handle different situations. So we come across it quite a bit. Our goal is to advise and obviously consult. And if we think an environment isn’t the right environment for us to partner in, that’s not a situation that we’ll get involved with.

[00:13:18] Jason Schneck: Most outsourced physics groups are private, but for some that could be tied to big public companies. Does do you have any concerns about the ownership of those companies changing how services can affect hospitals and patients?

[00:13:34] Chris St John: I don’t. Like, I’m I’m a big believer, like, the funding structure, the organizational structure, the ownership structure behind a company should have no influence on the way that it performs or goes to market. Right? We we define our company by our people, by our mission, by our core values and principles, and that’s how we show up every day with our customers, with our people, and with our leadership teams. That’s what defines, like, who we are as a company, and I think that that, in an ideal world, is how it works. So I can I can speak for one physics? I can’t speak for every other kind of company that that’s out there. I do think as consolidation occurs, we have the ability to have a bigger voice and bring more representation to the medical physics space. As I said earlier, I think underrepresentation and under advocacy for medical physics and the role that it plays in creating a very safe and excellent care environment for our patients is underrepresented. And as we get bigger and can invest in things like advocacy, regulatory environments in a positive way, those are very good things for the industry. We also give great career opportunities and choices for physicists and what they wanna do with their career. So I think there’s a lot of positive things that can come from it. And again, ultimately, we all compete on a level playing field. And if we don’t show up and do our job in the right way, customers and caregivers are gonna make a different choice. And that’s something that we have to earn that trust on a daily basis, and we do that very well. It’s very important to us, the culture we create. And ultimately, we want this to be a destination workplace for the medical physics industry, and that’s gotta be a place where people wanna come work. So that’s important to us.

[00:15:16] Jason Schneck: That’s an interesting spin, honestly. Like, I I think when you hear about consolidation, right, like, my just the the way that my brain works is, like, I I think about monopolies and and risk associated with that consolidation, but what you’re saying is actually kind of the flip of that, which is, like, by consolidating to some degree, you are able to make more progress just, like, due to your combined power. Yeah?

[00:15:43] Chris St John: Yeah. I mean, I I the the the strength, the scale, the ability to invest in residency programs and education. We have clinical advisory boards, and we have many physicists that sit on ACR and ABR boards in different modalities. We’re very active in MQSA regulation. So all of those things because we have over 250 clinicians in the company, we allow us to be able to invest in in in those things, and I think that’s very important. The other thing I would say is we don’t define the rules. So the the rules are defined by the regulatory bodies and the accrediting bodies. Like so we all all have to abide by the same rules whether we’re two physicists or whether we’re 250. That’s ultimately the safeguard of the industry. And certainly from a regulatory standpoint, we don’t agree with everything that’s out there, and we influence for positive change. And, again, I think with scale, your ability to do that gets enhanced at a pretty significant level.

[00:16:42] Jason Schneck: Yeah. And so I I mean, honestly, I’m gonna ask for pros and cons of both. But Yeah. Just to start with outsourcing, critics would say that outsourcing can create distance. Right? Physicist isn’t there. They’re not as close with the staff, not ingrained in the culture. Like, how would you respond to that criticism, and then we’ll switch to the other one?

[00:17:00] Chris St John: And I’ve worked in health care service industries and and other segments of the environment. And I would say, like, our physicists are radiation safety officers at over 500 facilities across North America, and we’re on-site either on a daily basis, weekly, or monthly basis. So we are there, and we are present. We sit in construction planning and project planning meetings. We are a phone call away or we are on-site very often. So although there may there may seem like a big difference in the way that they function is very, very, like, not different. Like, radiologists and oncologists have or physicists’ cell phones call them on a regular basis for consultation. We do a lot of remote physics when necessary to just support our customers. So they get a diff they get a paycheck that says Mhmm. Something different at the bottom of it, but does that really matter at the end of the day, not inform and function? The other thing I would say is insourcing versus outsourcing, one, it can be an economic decision, but it’s also for a health care competency of that organization? And I talked to you about the complexity of the regulatory and the radiation safety and the molecular imaging environment and radiopharmaceuticals. That is not their specialty. Like, that is that is what we do twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. We wake up every day and we think about it and we do research on it and we strive to be the best that we can be. Is that a core competency or a focus of the healthcare system? That’s a strategic question that I think every provider has to answer for themselves and ultimately do is, hey. This is this something we wanna put a lot of time and energy in, or do I wanna find a trusted partner that this is what they do, and I’ll hold them accountable for making sure they do that in an efficient way, but in the safe the safest most with the highest quality with a focus on patient care as I can get.

[00:18:53] Jason Schneck: Then then to hit the other side. Right? Like, insourcing is not always sustainable. I I feel like it’s pretty unrealistic to think that every hospital can staff their own physicists, especially given the work shortage that we have going on.

[00:19:06] Chris St John: I mean, that’s right. I mean, if you look at some of the, like, the largest health care systems in the country, whether it be Ascension Health or HCA, they have built hundreds and hundreds of ambulatory care and outpatient centers across the country. So for an in house physicist that used to go to one building and now has to take care of a state’s worth of ambulatory care centers where they have x-ray and CT and C arms, that is not reasonable. So a function of, again, I think just care moving out of that acute care setting, and literally medical physics is needed on every street corner in this country, requires some level of change in the industry. Right? And that’s what again, we’re advocating to to lead that. We wanna lead from the front and make sure that it’s done in a positive way as opposed to a negative way. And but the dynamic in the industry is really forcing it to happen.

[00:20:00] Jason Schneck: Yeah. I mean and, like, is there is there ever any concern with in house teams becoming too insulated? And and, actually, to tie into that, I’m very curious about, like, what does the working relationship between your team of physicists look like in terms of communication, peer education?

[00:20:20] Chris St John: Yep. I’ll kinda start with the second one. I’ll go back to to the first one. The the value of having 250 clinicians in our company is we have the ability to identify subject matter experts, so at a modality and maybe like an OEM level. So our physicists can go in and research, like, who has great experience in MRI on maybe a less popular, like a Hitachi or an MRI, a Fuji mammography system that they’re not gonna see a lot of them in the marketplace. So when they go to do the testing on it, there probably is knowledge transfer, knowledge share that can really be helpful to a physicist in in that kind of environment. So we really leverage the collective knowledge and our experience and our exposure as a larger physics group to be able to make the experience better and to be better at what we do. So it’s really just kinda capturing that knowledge and how do we share it across our company and even with in house organizations. We’re very we’re very collaboratively. There’s no kinda walls between the way we work. We work hand in hand with in house with in house physicists all the time. On the other side is is there a risk of maybe in house teams getting too isolated and not having enough enough exposure? One thing Medical Physics has done very well is, I mean, they have very strong associations. So Camp App and AAPM are great resources for physicists to get continuing education. So I think the industry as a whole does a very good job of educating its workforce over the lifetime of their career. So I think that that is very positive. But when you have, like, really certainly in the radiopharmaceutical and molecular imaging space, like like situations where Pluvicto comes in and it really requires a completely different thought process from a radiation safety standpoint, If you don’t have experience with that or you haven’t seen it, you really risk, like, missing something. Right? So I think those are the places where, again, we have hyper evolution and technology advancement in that nuclear molecular imaging space and in theranostics where exposure and having visibility to it across many environments really can create great value for caregivers and and someone that’s just getting into Plavicto treatment or something similar to that. So I think that that’s one of the the things that we can provide great value to to the industry around.

[00:22:41] Jason Schneck: Would you mind letting me know I’ve never actually heard of Pluvicto before. Would you mind just giving me a bit of additional context?

[00:22:47] Chris St John: Yeah. Paivicta was a radiotherapy to treat advanced prostate cancer. So Okay. If you were diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer three years ago, you probably would have been entering hospice, and your chances of survival were very low. Pevicta was a a radiotherapy that attacks the cancer at the prostate level, and it has had amazing results in treating very advanced stages of of prostate cancer. There is a tremendous investment in that theranostic radiopharmaceutical space right now because they’re learning what would used to be what a traditional radiopharmaceutical tracer can now be inverted into actually a treatment and a therapy device. So it’s another strategy for oncology treatment outside of traditional radiation therapy, and it opens up a whole world of opportunity and and optimism for people that have advanced stage cancer.

[00:23:43] Jason Schneck: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m excited. We we’ve got our theranostics episode coming up down the pipeline. And so I’m I’m a few steps behind because I haven’t done my interviews yet.

[00:23:51] Chris St John: Well, it’s it’s amazing. It it’s amazing health care, and it’s really one of those places where it’s bringing together again. You use a lot of diagnostic inspect and molecular imaging in the diagnosis and in the treatment planning. And then, again, you’re providing a therapy, so you’re actually providing oncology services. So it’s changing, again, the dynamic of kind of the silos we’ve built around diagnostic and therapy, medical physics, and bringing them very closely together.

[00:24:21] Jason Schneck: Yeah. And so I mean okay. Let’s say that I I am a patient getting a scan tomorrow. I think I got an MRI maybe last year or something, but that’s that’s it. Let’s say, hypothetically, I’m getting scanned tomorrow. As a patient, like, am I going to have any sort of indication whether or not my physics staff is in house or or outsourced? No. You’re you’re you’re not.

[00:24:46] Chris St John: I mean, ironically, I I I was at the dentist earlier this week, and I got dental X-ray. Mhmm. And I’ve I’ve looked who was the medical physics provider on the system just by curiosity because I wanted to see who had who had tested it. But I I think that’s the the safety in your organization is is that diagnostic imaging device is accredited by ACR or RadSight or one of the accrediting bodies. And we all we all submit images, and we all do the work towards the parameters that the body has set. We use ACR for an example. So whether an in house physicist or, oh, well, one physics physicist is doing that work, we’re all working to the same set of parameters in in that. So I don’t think it’s something that patients have have to worry about, and it’s why the regulatory environment is set up the way it is to ensure safety for patients.

[00:25:36] Jason Schneck: Let’s talk time line a little bit. Right? Like, looking looking forward ten years or so, what do you think the the landscape is gonna look like as we move into the future?

[00:25:46] Chris St John: Yeah. And and I think we talked a lot about consolidation. Right? And and maybe I’m biased, but as I’ve worked for over twenty five, almost thirty years in this health care environment, I’ve seen a lot of different things. If you go back thirty years, the outsourcing and consolidation trend within hospitals, it started with things like laundry and food services and security, and it’s moved up the technical paradigm. And then it went to biomedical services and then diagnostic imaging, and then, like, even radiologists and the way that radiologists function within a hospital. Like, all of those things have trended towards outsourcing. I believe medical physics will continue to go in that direction, but there will all be good balance in the industry. Right? Like, balance is a natural form and function, and it exists in all those other technical, clinical, and ancillary services that I talked about. But I think you’ll see more of it in the medical physics space. And it’s a it’s just a it’s a natural occurrence of what we’ve seen in health care. And to think that this will be resistant to that or or would or just, like, not towards the normal trends that we see, I think that would be unrealistic. And that’s why I would never do anything that is not in the best interest of the industry, and I truly believe that we can lead the change in a positive way in that direction because, inevitably, it’s gonna happen. And we want it we want it to happen in a positive way and bring think good things to the advocacy of medical physicists and be able to invest in positive regulatory environments, positive educational environments for physicists, and create great opportunity for the industry.

[00:27:20] Jason Schneck: Yeah. And and talking about the industry as a whole. Right? Like, we know we know that we are short on physicists nationally. I’m kinda curious, like, what your spin is on like, what are steps that we can be taking to try and address the staffing shortage. Right? And and are is there anything that One Phixx is doing to try and address this as a physics company?

[00:27:42] Chris St John: Yeah. And, like, that’s a big thing. When I when I talk about, like, medical physics being underrepresented underrepresented or underserved is people just don’t know about the industry and the profession. It is a great profession income and have a great career in that space, but people just aren’t aware that medical physics even exists in some situations. So we’re doing a lot to just drive awareness about the importance of it and the career opportunities that it presents to people. And so that’s one. Secondly, we we invest in a a lot of residency programs, both on the diagnostic and the therapy side. I think we’re up to seven or eight residency programs across the company.

[00:28:24] Jason Schneck: Oh, very cool.

[00:28:25] Chris St John: So we’re a very big believer in partnering with academics to build and educate and bring great physicists into the environment and and do our responsibility there. Obviously, it’s a bit self serving. We hope that they choose a career with one physics, but maybe they wanna go back to academia or do something different. Regardless, it’s an investment that we will continue to make in the industry. And then thirdly, I think just advocating. Right? Advocating with the American Board of Radiology, AAPM, being active in Camp App, all of those things that we can continue to do as a larger organization in this industry to drive positive change and awareness, it is resource constrained. Right? We need we the I think the industry could definitely use more physicists and more physicists coming into their career and getting excited about it. So that’s something that I think we’re all challenged with. I get concerned at the the kind of the aging population that we have with some of our our physicists that have been doing it for for quite a long time. And they’re a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we have to create a responsible transition of that knowledge base to kind of the next generation of physicists.

[00:29:34] Jason Schneck: Right. I mean and isn’t from what I have heard, and this is all secondhand, conversational things I’ve read, it feels like there is a, like there’s a very high barrier to entry in terms of, like, academic requirements to become a physicist. Like, the fundamental, like, class like, classes and education that you need in order to get into a medical physics program is already high. So, I mean, like, how how do you feel about that barrier to entry, And do you feel like there’s any value in potentially loosening up the base requirements to get more people into these programs faster?

[00:30:14] Chris St John: Yeah. I think in certain situations, I I I would love to see that. I mean so if you if you talk about those base requirements, right, you have to have a master’s degree from an accredited medical physics program, and then you have to go through a minimum of a two year residency program.

[00:30:29] Jason Schneck: Mhmm.

[00:30:29] Chris St John: And then if you, like, change the state that you’re working in, those requirements might be different. So you might have to do kinda more residency or more time served kinda learning in if you went from Texas to Colorado or to New York. So it is it is very stringent. Obviously, we work with Camp App to find the most efficient way to train physicists in a responsible way and make sure that look. Everyone needs to be educated at the right level. Is there over influence or maybe overeducation at times? It I would say it feels that way for sure in certain environments. But, again, we’re we all play by the same rules. We don’t set those regulations. But I do think over time, again, One Physix hopes to influence them in a in a positive way.

[00:31:14] Jason Schneck: Right. And I’m and and I wasn’t so much getting at the at the requirements for the master’s and residency. I’m talking about to even get into that master’s program needing a physics degree, like a BA in physics.

[00:31:28] Chris St John: Yeah. I think that’s where I search with our education system. But, again, I think just general awareness of this as a a great career path. Right? I mean, I have three teenagers today. Right? So I have my my first is a freshman in her first semester of college. I have a senior in high school, and I have a freshman in high school. Like, talking with them about their career options and choices is very, very different than it was thirty years ago when when I graduated college. And I have an engineering background. But I don’t have a physics degree, but I have an engineering degree. So I’ve worked very closely with it, and I understand it, but you don’t we don’t have as many people going into math and sciences as we probably need just to get, again, to feed the industry, and it’s something that we have to we work every day to build tools and make our medical physicists as efficient as possible because we want medical physicists to do physics work and not be burdened with other things that may kinda clutter their place. So we try to take as much of that off as we can and allow them to go do what they’ve been trained

[00:32:27] Jason Schneck: to do. Yeah. For sure. If you had to respond to someone thinking that outsourcing is, like, a temporary stopgap, what would you say to that? Or or would you pitch that, like, this is just the inevitable future of physics to some degree?

[00:32:42] Chris St John: I don’t think it’s a stop gap. Right? I mean, I think it I mean, the trend has existed for for decades. And like I’ve seen, we we’ve seen acceleration of maybe outsourcing and some consolidation, but not at the pace as as occurred in in other parts of health care. My point of view is that history would show us, right, that other aspects of clinical care and other services, whether they’re ancillary, technical, or clinical, have moved in this direction. And it would be you’d have to go out on a flyer to say that this is just fundamentally medical physics is fundamentally different than everything else that happens in health care, and it’s not gonna follow that same trend. And I don’t personally believe that. Like, I think it will move in that direction at whatever pace is responsible and the industry moves. And, again, it is change, but I think that the change can be in a positive way as we invest in, again, advocacy for medical physics. We try to bring more young people into the profession. We create educational opportunities through residencies and other programs. We’ve done a lot of work to bring international physicists into the country through structured mentorship programs. So we’re really doing a lot of things to just build up the profession. And then, ultimately, I like to think of it as we wanna create a destination workplace where a physicist can if they wanna be a a diagnostic staff physicist and a chief physicist, they could do that. If they wanna move into leadership, they wanna work more on the business side or the regulatory side. They wanna get into radiation safety. We provide so many different career paths for physicists to go that there are so many positive things. And you can be just resistant to change and just say, I don’t want anything to change. I don’t think that that’s an option. I just don’t think health care in this country and with all the challenges that it has is just gonna allow medical physics to stay as it as it has been for fifty years. So we need to evolve. We need to get better. We need to adapt, and I think we can continue to do those things in a in a really positive way for the industry and for our our customer partners. I get I get asked every day by national not every day, but on on a weekly basis in conversations with customers that want a comprehensive physics partner. Not to do everything for them, but to help them as their footprint changes and they expand and they get into new things, they can’t possibly do it all themselves. So they’re looking for a responsible, trusted partner to be able to do that with, and and we’re certainly trying to be that for them.

[00:35:12] Jason Schneck: Uh, hell yeah. I love that. Yeah. Well, Jason, thank you for joining us today on Rethink Imaging. It’s been really great chatting with you today.

[00:35:19] Chris St John: Yeah, Chris. No. We appreciate the opportunity. I certainly do. I love the work that you do and and continue to do it. Looking forward to upcoming episodes and look forward to maybe someday being back on the show, but I appreciate the time that you’ve given me today very much.

[00:35:33] Jason Schneck: Yeah. Absolutely. And we would always love to have you back. This has been Jason Schneck, the CEO of one Physics. Jason, thanks again, and we’ll talk to you soon. Frame by Frame Rethink Imaging is brought to you by Imalogix. Here, you’ll find engaging interviews with thought leaders, experts, and patients, sharing stories that showcase the transformative power of medical imaging. To discover how Imologix is rethinking imaging in health care, visit imologix.com. Be sure to subscribe to Frame by Frame Rethink Imaging on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. And from all of us here at Emalogics, thanks for tuning in.

Questions from This Episode

Can a patient tell whether their imaging site uses in-house or outsourced medical physics?
No, and Schneck argues they should not have to. Every device is accredited by bodies like ACR or RadSite, and every physicist, in-house or outsourced, tests to the same parameters those bodies set. The regulatory framework, not the employment model, is what protects patients.
Is outsourced medical physics a lower level of service than in-house?
Schneck rejects that outright. His physicists are on-site daily, weekly, or monthly, sit in construction and project planning meetings, and take direct calls from radiologists and oncologists. He adds that a large group sees every OEM’s equipment and complex cases like Pluvicto programs daily, exposure a single in-house team rarely gets.
Why hasn't medical physics consolidated like the rest of healthcare?
State-level regulation and a complex compliance environment slowed it down while insurance, providers, biomed, and radiology all consolidated. Schneck traces a thirty-year outsourcing arc from laundry and food service up through diagnostic imaging and radiologist groups, and says medical physics will follow the same path at a responsible pace.