Research Organization Document

Phase I
The Research Basics lecture identified the following steps in beginning the research
process:
1. Select a philosophical foundation
2. Determine group interest
3. Research your interests and develop a research problem
4. Find a supporting problem/develop a theory base (literature review)
5. Develop scientific question/query and select a research design
In the discussion forum, you should have narrowed down your interests into a single topic.
This document will help you apply these essential steps to your capstone project topic.
1. What philosophical foundation are you pursuing? Why?
Logical positivism. We will be utilizing scientific research while gathering usable and
measurable data throughout our project. By using this method, our data can be verified
using the scientific method.1
2. What is your group interest? (This would be the high-level idea that you
listed/discussed in the discussion forum).
Benefits of Simulation Free Computed Tomography (SFCT)

 In our professional experience, a departmental issue that we face daily would be CT

scheduling conflicts of urgent cases. After reading other research studies,
uncompleted research has been done to confirm the fidelity of dosimetric
deliverability on emergent patients who are receiving treatment. Currently patients
must undergo a separate radiation planning CT although having already received a
diagnostic scan. We want to further assess the necessity of this additional CT and its
practicality.

3. Find a problem/develop a theory base. These concepts are combined because

both concepts support the idea that you need to determine what’s out there on your
particular interest/topic.
a. What is the research problem? Your working problem statements below.
The problem is the questionable necessity of performing an additional CT scan when patients
are in need of urgent treatment. When compared to standard CT planning methods for patients
undergoing emergent heterotopic ossification treatment, there is a lack of evidence showing a
diagnostic CT planning mechanism is equally as safe and dosimetrically effective.
What knowledge exists on your interests and the problems you’ve come up with?
i. Conduct a literature review on your topics. If You’ve identified a
potential high-level problem to solve but how do you know that
someone else hasn’t already researched this problem? This is the
purpose of a literature review. You need to find peer-reviewed
scholarly articles that support the need for your proposed research.
The pertinent articles that you find will be used to confirm or refute
the results of your study so the research must be current (5 years old
at the most). The only circumstance in which older articles should be
used is in the case of task group reports, QUANTEC or similar
monumental articles. List the most pertinent articles that you intend
to use to support your research in AMA formatting in this document.
Refer to this list often. (Note: you will be providing summaries of
these articles in a later assignment so it’s a good idea to hold on to
notes about each article now).

One prior study, Simulation-Free Radiation Therapy: An Emerging Form of Treatment

Planning to Expedite Plan Generation for Patients Receiving Palliative Radiation
Therapy, utilized different patients when comparing Simulation-Free Radiation Therapy
(SFRT) and Computed Tomography Radiation Therapy (CTRT). This study focused on
machine treatment time and total plan generation time. Dosimetric differences were
evaluated in a broad scheme.2 Upon completing a literature review, we found several
other pertinent articles regarding this topic.

Literature Review References

 Schiff JP, Zhao T, Huang Y, et al. Simulation-free radiation therapy: An emerging

form of treatment planning to expedite plan generation for patients receiving
palliative radiation therapy. Advances in Radiation Oncology. 2023;8(1):101091.
Doi:10.1016/j.adro.2022.101091
 Wong S, Roderick S, Kejda A, et al. Diagnostic computed tomography enabled
planning for palliative radiation therapy: Removing the need for a planning computed
tomography scan. Practical Radiation Oncology. 2021;11(2).
Doi:10.1016/j.prro.2020.10.010
 Schuler T, Back M, Hruby G, et al. Introducing computed tomography simulation–
free and electronic patient-reported outcomes–monitored palliative radiation therapy
into routine care: Clinical outcomes and implementation experience. Advances in
Radiation Oncology. 2021;6(2):100632. Doi:10.1016/j.adro.2020.100632
 Glober G, Holmes TW, Chauhan B, et al. A method to reduce time to start for
patients receiving palliative radiation therapy for painful spine metastases.
International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics. 2018;102(3).
Doi:10.1016/j.ijrobp.2018.07.1304
 4. What is the purpose of your study? This naturally falls in-line with the other
questions as you complete your literature review. What do you hope to find out
after you complete this research? What is the aim? These are all questions you
should ask yourselves.
The purpose of this study is to find that planning on a diagnostic CT (dCT) for emergent
heterotopic ossification yields a non-inferior result when dosimetrically compared to the plan
created with an additional radiation planning CT (pCT).
5. What are your supporting questions? Develop some key questions that your
reader will know the answer to after reading your research paper that support your
research problem. These questions should require elaboration (a simply stated
yes/no answer question is not permitted). For example:
a. Research Question: Where should our next coffee shop location be?
b. Supporting Questions: What customer base are we seeking?
 What is the need for a separate CT scan?
 How significant is the dosimetric difference between utilizing a diagnostic scan to plan
treatments as opposed to using a radiation planning CT?

6. What type of research design are you interested in pursuing with this topic?
Some very basic information on each type (experimental/quantitative or
naturalistic/qualitative) was provided at the end of this week’s lecture. You will get
more into the research design in the coming weeks but you should determine which
design you are going to pursue now.
Quantitative. Our goal is to answer a specific question utilizing statistical evidence with a
specific hypothesis addressing a single issue with tangible data. 1 We have total control and
manipulation of our variables.
Submit this document to the appropriate assignment area when instructed.
References

1.Leonards N. Research Basics and Research Process. [SoftChalk]. La Crosse, WI: UW-L Medical
Dosimetry Program; 2023.

2.Schiff JP, Zhao T, Huang Y, et al. Simulation-free radiation therapy: An emerging form of
treatment planning to expedite plan generation for patients receiving palliative radiation therapy.
Advances in Radiation Oncology. 2023;8(1):101091. doi:10.1016/j.adro.2022.101091