University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Nuclear Medicine Therapy Fellowship

UPMC is an SNMMI Comprehensive Radionuclide Therapy Center of Excellence.  We offer a full spectrum nuclear medicine department.  The core UPMC hospitals in Pittsburgh are a referral center for the entire 42 hospital system covering most of western Pennsylvania and parts of NY, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland.  Any fellow will see a wide variety of interesting cases and pathology.  We have the Siemens Quadra PET/CT scanner (1 of 2 sites in America) that can do head to thighs in 1 bed position and allows for dynamic PET imaging.  In addition to the broad clinical experience, there are also a wide variety of educational conferences, journal clubs and teaching opportunities. Pittsburgh is also a great city to enjoy life outside of work with world class museums, restaurants, outdoor sports, parks, our local professional sports teams Steelers Football, Pirates Baseball, and Penguins Hockey.

Months 1-3

• Monday AM Pluvicto Therapies and tumor imaging
• Monday PM Prostate Cancer Theranostics Clinic at Hillman Cancer Center, GU Multidisciplinary Conference
• Tuesday AM Lutathera followed by Thyroid Cancer Clinic (Y-90 microsphere therapies when available)
• Tuesday PM PET/CT
• Wednesday AM Lutathera followed by Thyroid Cancer Clinic and I-131 cancer therapies
• Wednesday PM PET/CT, Thyroid Cancer Multidisciplinary Conference, Parathyroid Multidisciplinary Conference, Pancreas Multidisciplinary Conference, Liver transplant conference
• Thursday Lutathera followed by General Nuclear medicine with a focus on tumor imaging, Y90 therapies when available
• Friday AM Lutathera followed by Neuroendocrine Theranostics clinic at Hillman Cancer Center
• Friday PM Oncologic PET/CT with a focus on specialized radiotracers (PSMA, Dotatate, Cerianna, Fluciclovine, etc)

Month 4 Pediatrics.

• This will take place at Children’s Hospital Pittsburgh.  This includes pediatric PET/CT imaging, I-123 MIBG imaging, pediatric general nuclear medicine, and therapies.  You will also rotate with our Neuroblastoma oncologists, attend Neuroblastoma Clinic, and present cases at Neuroblastoma Multidisciplinary Conference. You will also attend the weekly Pediatric General Oncology Multidisciplinary Conference. A rotation in pediatric endocrinology with a focus on thyroid cancer and hyperthyroidism.

Month 5

• Radiation Oncology and dosimetry

Month 6-10

• Interventional Radiology
• Surgical Oncology
• Genitourinary Oncology
• Urology
• Lymphoma Oncology
• GI Oncology
• Neuro-oncology
• Adult Thyroid
• Some of these rotations are 2 weeks; however, many such as Lymphoma or Thyroid, have 1-2 clinics a week spread out over the 4 months to give 2 weeks’ worth of clinical experience

We offer 5 weeks of vacation (including conferences)

Clinical research is an integral part of this fellowship.  Our fellows will become co-investigators on the active theranostics clinical trials.  They will be expected to participate in the trial setup, meetings, patient enrollment, image analysis, therapy, and data analysis.  There will also be a research elective split into 2 x two-week blocks to allow the fellow the opportunity to prepare research for presentation at national meetings.

Months 11-12

• Nuclear Medicine Therapy with the addition of doing dosimetry both pre-planning dosimetry and post therapy dosimetry.

All the fellows should receive extensive Nuclear Oncology experience with all FDA approved radionuclides therapies especially Pluvicto, Radioiodine, Luthathera, Azedra, and Xofigo. Fellows should also receive a lot of experience running radionuclide research with both FDA approved and prior to FDA approval.

If the applicant is not Radiology or Nuclear Medicine trained, then the first 2 months will be CT and MRI.  If the applicant is radiation oncology trained, they can swap out the radiation oncology month for an imaging month.

Interested applicants should send a CV and letter of interest to: Dr. Kenneth Bennet, MD at bennetkg@upmc.edu.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and values equality of opportunity, human dignity and diversity, EOE, including disability/vets.