Taking the CMD boards in August and trying to calibrate how much time I actually need. I've been in clinical dosimetry for 3 years so the treatment planning and isodose content feels like second nature, but the radiobiology and physics foundations sections are where I'm losing points on practice exams. Currently sitting around 63% on physics.
I'm putting in roughly 1 hour on weekdays after shifts and maybe 4 hours on weekends — about 9–10 hours a week. At that pace I have maybe 60 hours before exam day, and I'm not sure that's enough. Most people I've talked to said they did 80–120 hours total, but a lot of those folks came in with weaker clinical backgrounds than mine.
The AAMD study guide is my primary resource. I've also been working through old Radiological Physics Center benchmark problems for the physics sections. If anyone's gone through the CMD recently, I'd love to know whether the treatment planning simulation questions are more scenario-based or calculation-heavy on the current version.
I sat for CMD in 2024 and did about 95 hours of prep over 3 months. The physics section was the hardest part for me too — specifically inverse square law applications and beam modification factors. Grinding calculation problems daily helped more than re-reading theory ever did.
The current exam is more scenario-based than calculation-heavy from what I saw last fall. They give you a clinical situation and ask you to identify what's wrong or what the next step is. Less plugging numbers, more clinical reasoning.
With 3 years of clinical experience you're probably underestimating yourself on the planning sections. Where people consistently struggle is radiation protection and regulatory content — that stuff doesn't come up in daily work. Don't let that module slip.
I used Khan Academy physics refreshers alongside the AAMD materials and it helped a lot for the foundational concepts. Some radiobiology topics make more sense explained visually rather than just reading dense text.