The physicist who makes sure the radiation machines in a cancer centre are safe and accurate. A PhD, a residency and a national exam. Long road, rare job, high pay.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$117,000
Resident or junior
$73,000
Senior or department head
$200,000
Job Bank's national median is $56.49 an hour, about $117,000 a year full time. Job Bank pools medical physicists with all other physicists and astronomers, so this is the group figure. Certified clinical medical physicists in cancer centres usually sit above the median; the top of the range is about $96 an hour, roughly $200,000.
Roughly $60,000 to $75,000
Salary as a medical physics resident, 2 years after your graduate degree
Residents are paid hospital employees. It is real money, but it comes after 8 or more years of university.
$130,000 to $200,000
Clinical physicist with CCPM (Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine) certification and a few years in
Cancer agencies pay on a professional grid that climbs with years and responsibility. Chief physicists at big centres reach the top.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Only the four year physics degree is genuinely paid out of pocket, at 7,000 to 10,000 a year. Master's and doctoral study in medical physics is normally covered by stipends and teaching work, so those years add exam and membership fees rather than tuition. The certification exams through the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine are about 845 for the written and oral together. The real cost of this career is the eight to twelve years before a first full salary, not the fees.
Graduate school in physics is usually funded, so debt is mostly from the undergrad. The real cost is time: a decade before your first full salary.
Defined-benefit pension
HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) in Ontario. Provincial cancer agencies elsewhere have similar plans.
Extended health and dental
Mostly weekday hours
Machine checks happen after the last patient, so some evenings. Little true on-call.
Research and teaching time
Many positions come with a university appointment.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
As long as becoming a doctor, with a physics degree instead of medical school.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Top marks in physics, calculus, chemistry and English.
Bachelor's in physics
4 years
Or engineering physics. Strong marks, research summers, and comfort with programming.
Accredited graduate degree
2 to 6 years
A master's or PhD in medical physics from a CAMPEP (Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs) accredited program. Thirteen Canadian universities qualify, including UBC (University of British Columbia), Alberta, Calgary, McGill, Laval, Toronto Metropolitan, Western and Dalhousie. Most clinical jobs expect the PhD.
Residency
2 years
Two years of supervised clinical training at a cancer centre. Thirteen accredited programs across Canada, from BC Cancer in Vancouver to the Ottawa Hospital. Positions are few and competitive.
CCPM (Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine) exam
After residency
Needs a graduate degree and two years of patient-related physics experience. A written exam in March and an oral exam in May. Recertify every 5 years.
Physics
The whole field is physics.
Calculus and functions
Required for any physics degree.
Computer science
Treatment planning and quality checks are software.
Biology
You need to understand what the radiation is hitting.
No province licenses medical physicists, but the CCPM (Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine) certification has become the standard for clinical jobs and is required for senior positions. The College was founded in 1979 and certifies mainly in radiation oncology physics, with separate certifications for mammography and a fellowship level. Provincial radiation safety rules also name the physicist as the person responsible for machine calibration, so the job carries legal responsibility even without a licence.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Radiation oncology physics
The biggest branch. Calibrating linear accelerators, checking treatment plans, commissioning new machines.
Diagnostic imaging physics
Quality and radiation dose for CT (computed tomography), X-ray and mammography. Fewer positions, less on-site pressure.
Nuclear medicine and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) physics
Smaller specialties in large academic centres.
Industry and regulation
Equipment makers, the federal nuclear regulator and provincial safety agencies all hire medical physicists.
Programming
Python and scripting for planning systems and data. Expected, not optional.
Research publications
Residency committees read them.
Hands-on lab skills
Detectors, phantoms and measurement rigs are your tools.
Patience
Machine checks are repetitive and precise, and they are what keeps patients safe.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mornings are often plan checks: reviewing each new patient's radiation plan for dose and safety before treatment starts, and answering therapists' questions when a setup looks off. Midday might be commissioning a new technique or troubleshooting a machine fault with the engineers. After the last patient leaves you take the linear accelerator through its quality checks with detectors and phantoms, sometimes until 8pm. Add research, teaching residents, and committee work on radiation safety.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Harold Johns, a medical physicist in Saskatoon, led the team that treated the first cancer patient with a cobalt-60 unit in 1951. The machine, nicknamed the cobalt bomb, made high-energy radiation treatment affordable for hospitals around the world.
COMP (the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists) has just over 800 members, including academics and students. The number of certified clinical physicists is smaller still, which is why each one is responsible for so much.
The CCPM (Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine) written exam is held across Canada in March, and every candidate who passes travels to Montréal for a two-day oral exam in May, where examiners quiz you face to face.
Accredited medical physics residencies run at cancer centres in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Kingston, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, London, Windsor, Montréal and Halifax. Each takes only one or two residents a year.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.