MUMBAI, India, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ — Varian Medical Systems
(NYSE:
VAR), a world leader in radiotherapy equipment and software,
has established its first education center in India to train
medical physicists and technologists working on the company’s
advanced cancer treatment systems.
The center in Mumbai, equipped with 16 planning system
workstations and the VERT* training system for radiotherapy
treatment simulations, will enable the country’s growing number of
radiotherapists and medical physicists to train without having to
travel overseas. The official opening, which was attended by Kanta
Chokkra, president of the Association of Medical Physicists of
India, was carried out by Kolleen Kennedy, Varian’s VP Customer
Support Services.
“Radiotherapy use is growing rapidly here and we want to do
whatever we can to equip the increasing number of practitioners
with the experience they need locally,” says Michael Sandhu,
Varian’s regional head of operations. “This training center will
give us the opportunity to customize our training solutions to the
specific needs of Indian clinicians bringing, in the long term,
added value to their practices.”
Vivekanand Tathvadkar, Varian’s India country manager, adds, “In
the current economic climate people are not able to travel as
extensively as they used to, so a facility here in India gives them
the opportunity to get hands-on experience without leaving the
country. We also hope to attract trainees from neighboring
countries.”
“There are fewer than 400 radiotherapy machines in India and
almost half of these are outdated cobalt machines,” adds Michael
Sandhu, “but we are seeing a rapid investment in new equipment and
many Indian hospitals are now able to offer the most advanced
treatments available in the world, such as image-guided RapidArc
radiotherapy and radiosurgery.” RapidArc® delivers
precise image
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