Hester Burger is a Radiotherapy Medical Physicist currently working as Clinical Development Program Manager for Varian Medical Affairs. She qualified as medical physicist in 1995 (University of Pretoria, South Africa). She continued to complete her master’s degree in radiotherapy medical physics and moved to the Netcare Group of Hospitals in 1999, becoming the first full-time employed private medical physicist in South Africa.
In 2011 she accepted a position as Deputy Manager at the Groote Schuur Hospital and University of Cape Town, and was promoted to Director a year later. During her time at Groote Schuur Hospital, she assisted with the modernization and expansion of the radiotherapy department, re-establishment of the medical physics honours and internship programs, and establishment of the Access to Care Cape Town radiotherapy education program. This program was set up as a collaboration between the University of Cape Town, Cape Peninsula University of Technology and Varian Medical Systems, with the aim of creating courses that would assist teams in Africa to safely transition to modern radiotherapy.
After resigning as HOD in 2018, she took up the position of Access to Care Cape Town program manager and part time consultant to Varian Medical Affairs. In 2022 she accepted an offer to move to Varian Medical Affairs on a full time basis to manage the Clinical Development Program, focusing on establishing multiple training programs in low and middle income countries. At present, the program includes collaborations with several universities and organizations from Africa, the Middle East, USA, Australia and Bangladesh, all run as access to care outreach projects.
Her main interest is radiotherapy treatment planning, and education of radiotherapy professionals in LMICs. She also has a special interest in paediatric radiotherapy and collaborated on several PROS and IAEA publications focusing on pediatric radiotherapy needs in LMICs.
