Top 12 Radiation Therapist Skills to Put on Your Resume
Radiation therapists sit at the intersection of precision and empathy, delivering targeted treatments for cancer and other conditions while guiding patients through complex days. A strong resume needs to show both sides—your technical command of advanced systems and your steady, human touch when it matters most.
Radiation Therapist Skills
- Varian TrueBeam
- Elekta Infinity
- CT Simulation
- MOSAIQ Record
- Pinnacle Planning
- Eclipse Software
- TomoTherapy
- Brachytherapy
- IGRT Techniques
- VMAT Delivery
- CyberKnife
- ARIA Oncology
1. Varian TrueBeam
Varian TrueBeam is a modern linear accelerator platform built for precise radiation delivery, combining advanced imaging, motion management, and fast dose delivery to treat tumors while protecting nearby healthy tissue.
Why It's Important
TrueBeam enables accurate, efficient treatments across a wide range of techniques—IMRT, VMAT, SBRT, and more—helping therapists deliver consistent results with minimal dose to organs at risk.
How to Improve Varian TrueBeam Skills
Sharpening TrueBeam skills means leaning into its strengths and tightening daily habits.
Keep training current: Refresh competencies regularly with vendor courses, in‑service sessions, and peer shadowing.
Exploit image guidance: Use CBCT, kV imaging, and 6D couch corrections to lock in accurate setup and reduce margins.
Follow robust QA: Adhere to daily, monthly, and annual QA and document everything; resolve deviations quickly.
Use motion tools wisely: Apply respiratory gating or breath‑hold for moving targets; verify reproducibility at the console.
Standardize immobilization: Consistent devices and reproducible indexing cut setup variability.
Tighten workflows: Create clear checklists for timeout, imaging review, couch shifts, and post‑treatment sign‑off.
Precision piles up through small, repeatable steps. Build them into muscle memory.
How to Display Varian TrueBeam Skills on Your Resume
2. Elekta Infinity
Elekta Infinity is a high‑performance linac with strong IGRT and IMRT/VMAT capabilities, designed for accurate dose delivery and efficient daily throughput.
Why It's Important
With advanced imaging and dynamic dose control, Infinity helps therapists deliver conformal treatments that spare normal tissue and shorten chair time.
How to Improve Elekta Infinity Skills
Turn capability into consistency.
Master CBCT and kV workflows: Optimize protocols by site; verify shifts with 6D corrections when indicated.
Lean into VMAT: Coordinate with planning to reduce delivery complexity while preserving coverage and OAR limits.
Institutional QA discipline: Run and record machine, imaging, and end‑to‑end checks; escalate anomalies immediately.
Refine setup techniques: Immobilize thoughtfully; standardize tattoos, lasers, and indexing to reduce setup drift.
Share experience: Debrief with physicists and dosimetrists; tweak protocols based on real‑world delivery feedback.
How to Display Elekta Infinity Skills on Your Resume
3. CT Simulation
CT simulation maps the treatment area in three dimensions, capturing the patient’s anatomy in the exact treatment position so plans can be accurate and reproducible.
Why It's Important
Simulation sets the stage for everything that follows—good images, correct positioning, and clear contours translate directly into safer, sharper treatment.
How to Improve CT Simulation Skills
Fine‑tune image quality: Adjust slice thickness, FOV, and energy based on site; reduce artifact wherever possible.
Lock down positioning: Use appropriate immobilization, indexing, and laser alignment; photograph and document setup details.
Standardize protocols: Site‑specific checklists for contrast, bladder/rectum prep, breath‑hold, or 4DCT when motion matters.
Contour consistency: Follow consensus atlases; coordinate with physicians on borders and OARs before planning starts.
Communicate clearly: Explain the process to patients; calm, precise coaching improves cooperation and repeatability.
How to Display CT Simulation Skills on Your Resume
4. MOSAIQ Record
MOSAIQ is an oncology information system that ties scheduling, documentation, imaging, and treatment delivery together so the team works from one source of truth.
Why It's Important
Accurate records and seamless workflows reduce errors, speed up care, and keep clinicians aligned across visits and modalities.
How to Improve MOSAIQ Record Skills
Use templates and smart fields: Standardize notes, verify orders, and reduce free‑text ambiguity.
Tight documentation discipline: Enter shifts, overrides, bolus use, and patient‑specific notes the same day, every day.
QA your data: Run regular chart checks; reconcile identifiers, course associations, and linked images.
Learn the reporting tools: Track missed treatments, plan changes, and discrepancies to spot trends.
Close the loop: Create a quick feedback channel with dosimetry, physics, and nursing for fixes and refinements.
How to Display MOSAIQ Record Skills on Your Resume
5. Pinnacle Planning
Pinnacle is a treatment planning system used to create individualized plans that shape dose tightly around targets while controlling exposure to normal tissues.
Why It's Important
Great plans balance coverage, conformity, and practicality. Therapists who understand planning nuances deliver them more safely and consistently.
How to Improve Pinnacle Planning Skills
Know the contours: Align on targets and OARs early; use consensus atlases and peer review to reduce variability.
Understand optimization levers: Collaborate with dosimetrists on objectives, priorities, and trade‑offs that affect delivery.
Bridge sim to plan: Communicate setup, immobilization, and motion notes from CT sim so plans match real‑world delivery.
Plan QA mindset: Anticipate tight clearances, couch kicks, and collision risks before the patient reaches the machine.
Keep learning: Refresh on planning updates, site‑specific protocols, and new workflows used at your center.
How to Display Pinnacle Planning Skills on Your Resume
6. Eclipse Software
Eclipse is a comprehensive planning system that models dose, simulates delivery, and produces plans that can be executed reliably on the treatment floor.
Why It's Important
Accurate plans start here—proper algorithm use, contour handling, and optimization decisions all ripple into daily treatment quality.
How to Improve Eclipse Software Skills
Algorithm awareness: Understand when to apply different dose calculation models and grid sizes; verify heterogeneity handling for lung, head‑and‑neck, and breast.
Structure management: Keep clean, well‑named structure sets; use robust OAR constraints and prioritize them appropriately.
Optimization finesse: Balance target coverage, conformity, and MU efficiency; reduce unnecessary modulation that complicates QA and delivery.
Use checks and scripting: Apply plan checks and, where available, safe automation to reduce manual error.
End‑to‑end thinking: Confirm plans are practical to set up, image, and verify with existing immobilization and IGRT workflows.
How to Display Eclipse Software Skills on Your Resume
7. TomoTherapy
TomoTherapy blends helical delivery with onboard MVCT imaging, enabling highly conformal dose painting and daily image guidance in one platform.
Why It's Important
It shines in complex targets and long fields, offering uniform coverage with tight dose falloff and robust day‑to‑day verification.
How to Improve TomoTherapy Skills
Own MVCT workflows: Standardize daily imaging, registration tolerances, and correction rules for each site.
Adaptive where it counts: Re‑scan and adapt for weight change, tumor shrinkage, or anatomical shifts that matter dosimetrically.
QA with purpose: Maintain machine and delivery QA; confirm plan deliverability and couch travel limits ahead of time.
Setup precision: Dial in immobilization and indexing; long fields magnify small inconsistencies.
Clear patient coaching: Comfort, breath cues, and expectation setting translate directly into cleaner images and steadier treatments.
How to Display TomoTherapy Skills on Your Resume
8. Brachytherapy
Brachytherapy places radioactive sources inside or adjacent to the target, delivering high dose where it’s needed and sparing surrounding tissue.
Why It's Important
It’s fast, focused, and effective for many sites—gynecologic, prostate, breast, skin—often with fewer visits and strong outcomes.
How to Improve Brachytherapy Skills
Image‑guided precision: Use CT or MRI for applicator verification and target/OAR confirmation; document dwell positions clearly.
Know your applicators: Practice assembly, placement checks, and verification steps; build procedural checklists with the team.
Afterloader safety: Perform pre‑treatment tests, timeout verifications, and emergency drills routinely.
Workflow choreography: Coordinate with anesthesia, nursing, physics, and the physician to minimize delays and motion.
Patient‑first communication: Explain sensations, timing, and post‑procedure care; reduce anxiety to improve cooperation.
How to Display Brachytherapy Skills on Your Resume
9. IGRT Techniques
IGRT uses imaging at the time of treatment—kV/MV, CBCT, ultrasound, surface guidance—to verify target position and adapt to daily changes.
Why It's Important
Sharper localization means tighter margins, fewer misses, and better protection for healthy tissues.
How to Improve IGRT Techniques Skills
Site‑specific protocols: Define imaging frequency, matching priorities, and correction thresholds for each disease site.
Motion management: Apply breath‑hold, gating, or internal surrogates when motion blurs accuracy; document reproducibility.
Surface guidance savvy: Use SGRT to reduce tattoos when appropriate and to monitor intrafraction motion in real time.
Adaptive readiness: Flag anatomy changes early and initiate plan review or re‑planning when dose distribution shifts.
QA and review: Audit registrations, record couch shifts, and analyze trends to improve setup reliability.
How to Display IGRT Techniques Skills on Your Resume
10. VMAT Delivery
VMAT delivers dose while the gantry arcs around the patient, continuously shaping the beam and adjusting dose rate for conformal, efficient treatments.
Why It's Important
It can reduce treatment times and improve conformity, provided planning and delivery are tuned to avoid unnecessary complexity.
How to Improve VMAT Delivery Skills
Practical plans: Work with planners to limit excessive modulation; choose sensible arcs, collimator angles, and couch positions.
Solid machine QA: Keep calibration current and verify MLC performance; catch leaf drift before it reaches patients.
Pretreatment checks: Run plan verification with your center’s tools (ion chamber, EPID/portal dosimetry, phantoms) and resolve failures fast.
Image and position well: Consistent CBCT or kV matching and 6D corrections keep tight plans on target.
Manage motion: Apply gating or breath‑hold for mobile targets; be mindful of interplay effects in thoracic and abdominal sites.
How to Display VMAT Delivery Skills on Your Resume
11. CyberKnife
CyberKnife is a robotic radiosurgery system that delivers highly precise, noninvasive treatments using real‑time image guidance and flexible beam angles.
Why It's Important
It targets small lesions with sub‑millimeter accuracy and can track motion, reducing dose to normal structures while hitting the mark.
How to Improve CyberKnife Skills
Master tracking options: Use fiducials, skull tracking, spine tracking, or markerless body tracking appropriately; verify stability before treatment.
Immobilize smartly: Customize supports to reduce motion; confirm reproducibility across fractions.
Refine imaging: Standardize image frequency and matching priorities; document thresholds for pausing and re‑imaging.
DQA and end‑to‑end: Perform delivery QA on new plans and periodic end‑to‑end tests with phantoms to validate the entire chain.
Patient coaching: Explain time on table, tracking requirements, and breath cues to minimize intrafraction shifts.
How to Display CyberKnife Skills on Your Resume
12. ARIA Oncology
ARIA is an integrated oncology information system that manages orders, documentation, images, and treatment delivery in one coordinated platform.
Why It's Important
It streamlines care, reduces handoff errors, and keeps the entire team synchronized from simulation to final fraction.
How to Improve ARIA Oncology Skills
Build smart templates: Standardize orders, imaging, and documentation pathways to cut manual entry and reduce mistakes.
Maintain clean data: Regularly reconcile demographics, course associations, and plan links; fix broken connections quickly.
Leverage integrations: Coordinate with IT on DICOM and messaging interfaces so images, plans, and notes flow without friction.
Audit and refine: Run periodic chart rounds and system audits; convert findings into updated checklists.
Train continuously: Share tips in short team huddles; capture lessons learned as quick reference guides inside the department.
How to Display ARIA Oncology Skills on Your Resume
