Physics that protects and heals people: radiation therapy for cancer, medical imaging, and keeping workers and the public safe from radiation.
Top pay: highest pay, longest training
Medical Physicist: Makes sure cancer radiation treatments and medical scanners are accurate and safe. Typical pay $235k.
Diagnostic Imaging Physicist: Tests and tunes X-ray, CT, mammography, and MRI machines so images are clear and radiation doses stay low. Typical pay $205k.
MRI Physicist: Invents new ways to use giant magnets and radio waves to see inside the body. Typical pay $155k.
Medical Dosimetrist: Designs the exact radiation beams used to treat each cancer patient, working with physicists and doctors. Typical pay $130k.
Nuclear Pharmacist: Prepares radioactive medicines used to scan and treat diseases like cancer and heart disease. Typical pay $140k.
Mid pay: solid pay, degree or apprenticeship
Health Physicist: Protects workers, patients, and the public from radiation at hospitals, power plants, labs, and government agencies. Typical pay $105k.
Radiation Safety Officer: Runs the radiation safety program at a hospital, university, or company that uses radioactive materials. Typical pay $88k.
Radiation Therapist: Operates the machines that deliver radiation treatments to cancer patients. Typical pay $102k.
Nuclear Medicine Technologist: Gives patients small doses of radioactive tracers and uses special cameras to image how their organs work. Typical pay $95k.
MRI Technologist: Runs MRI scanners to create detailed images of the body. Typical pay $88k.
Proton Therapy Engineer: Keeps the particle accelerators that blast tumors with protons running in cancer centers. Typical pay $95k.
MRI Safety Officer: Makes sure nothing metal, from oxygen tanks to hairpins and pacemakers, ever gets pulled into a hospital MRI magnet, which is always on. Typical pay $90k.
Starter: fastest way in
Medical Physics Assistant: Helps medical physicists run daily quality checks on radiation machines. Typical pay $54k.
Dosimetry Laboratory Technician: Processes the radiation badges worn by nurses, dentists, and power-plant workers to track how much radiation they got. Typical pay $45k.
Radiation Safety Technician: Helps the radiation safety officer at a hospital or university check labs and handle radioactive waste. Typical pay $52k.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.