UCLA seeks a dual-trained physician to bridge nuclear medicine, theranostics, and oncology imaging
UCLA is recruiting a full-time attending physician for a joint appointment in the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics and the Department of Radiological Sciences, signaling a continued push toward integrated molecular imaging and treatment delivery in oncologic care. The position sits in the Health Sciences Clinical Series and is open at the assistant, associate, or full professor level. The primary appointment will be in Nuclear Medicine, but the role is explicitly built to span both departments, a structure that reflects how modern cancer imaging is increasingly moving between diagnosis, response assessment, and targeted therapy.
The clinical expectations are unusually broad and deliberately so. Candidates must hold an M.D., be eligible for California licensure, and be board-certified or board-eligible by both the American Board of Nuclear Medicine and the American Board of Radiology. A body, abdominal, thoracic, or equivalent radiology fellowship is also required. In practice, the department is not looking for a narrow subspecialist; it is seeking a physician who can function comfortably across CT, PET/CT, and MRI, while also contributing to the expanding field of nuclear medicine therapy.
Receptor-based imaging training in prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumors is listed as a condition for appointment. That detail is clinically telling. These are among the clearest examples of theranostics in action, where the same biologic target can guide both lesion detection and treatment selection. In prostate cancer, receptor-directed imaging has reshaped staging and response assessment. In neuroendocrine tumors, tracer-based approaches have become central to identifying disease burden and matching patients to targeted radionuclide therapy.
The department is also looking for experience in treatment response assessment, whole-body MRI, and MRI/PET. Those areas matter because oncologic imaging is no longer limited to simple anatomic measurement. Whole-body techniques can track diffuse marrow or metastatic disease more comprehensively, while hybrid MRI/PET combines soft-tissue contrast with molecular information in a way that can sharpen lesion characterization and improve longitudinal assessment. For a department embedded in a comprehensive cancer center, that combination is not an academic luxury. It is the sort of capability that changes how multidisciplinary tumor boards evaluate progression, stability, and therapeutic efficacy.
UCLA’s infrastructure gives the opening real operational weight. The Department of Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics operates two SPECT/CT systems and five SPECT cameras across a multi-site operation. It also runs an outpatient theranostics center capable of treating up to 16 patients per day. Six PET/CT systems are jointly operated by Nuclear Medicine and Radiology. Those numbers point to a high-volume clinical enterprise in which imaging throughput, patient flow, and therapeutic scheduling must coexist in a tightly coordinated system.
The service environment is equally expansive on the radiology side. The Department of Radiological Sciences provides imaging, consultation, and interventional services across four hospitals and twenty-five outpatient sites. Photon counting CT and molecular MRI, described as MR PET machines, have recently been installed. In a center with that footprint, faculty members are expected to do more than read studies. They must participate in workflow design, cross-departmental consultation, and the interpretation of increasingly complex multimodality studies that connect radiology with radionuclide therapy.
Theranostics is moving from niche expertise to core academic practice
A clinician in this role would sit at the intersection of several fast-moving clinical demands. Nuclear medicine therapy is expanding as targeted radiopharmaceutical strategies gain traction, and that expansion requires physicians who can evaluate imaging biomarkers, select appropriate candidates, monitor response, and manage toxicity in concert with oncology colleagues. The posting makes clear that clinical and translational research are not optional add-ons. They are part of the job’s core identity.
The request for oncology clinical trial experience reflects another shift in academic imaging departments. Imaging endpoints now influence trial design, eligibility, and response adjudication across a wide range of malignancies. A physician with dual training in nuclear medicine and radiology can help align acquisition protocols, interpretive criteria, and longitudinal follow-up in ways that reduce noise in both daily care and research studies. In a center integrated with the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, that capability can affect trial execution from protocol planning through final readout.
There is also a strong operational logic behind the dual appointment. Nuclear medicine increasingly depends on radiologic fluency, while radiology increasingly depends on molecular imaging literacy. Patients do not present as separate organ systems, and the demand on academic centers is to create physicians who can interpret disease across anatomical, functional, and molecular axes without fragmentation. A physician who can move between oncology, abdominal imaging, and theranostic treatment planning offers a bridge across those domains.
The appointment is formally tied to one of the country’s major academic medical centers, but the posting is also a marker of how recruitment has changed in high-acuity imaging departments. Instead of hiring for a single device or a single modality, major centers now recruit for system-level expertise: imaging interpretation, interventional coordination, therapy delivery, and research participation. The best candidate in this search will not simply fill a clinical schedule. The role is designed to strengthen the department’s ability to deliver nuclear medicine therapy, interpret advanced molecular imaging, and support collaborative oncology care across multiple institutions and outpatient sites.
One practical consequence is immediate: the physician hired into this post will likely shape how UCLA continues to integrate PET/CT, SPECT/CT, MRI, and emerging molecular platforms into a unified cancer service line. The job description makes clear that the department is not maintaining the status quo; it is hiring for the next stage of expansion in theranostics and imaging-guided oncology care.
A faculty search built around breadth, not narrow specialization
The position is particularly notable for how many competencies it places on one clinician. It asks for high-level radiology skills, formal nuclear medicine credentials, familiarity with therapeutic applications, receptor-based imaging expertise, and interest in translational research. That combination is demanding, but it mirrors the real pressure points in academic nuclear medicine, where the most valuable physicians are often those who can translate between scan interpretation, treatment selection, and multidisciplinary cancer management.
For candidates already working in this field, the opportunity is defined by scale. For trainees and early-career faculty, the posting is a clear signal about where the discipline is heading: toward integrated practice models in which imaging and therapy are no longer separate lanes. UCLA is recruiting a physician who can work comfortably in that space from day one, while contributing to a department that already operates at substantial volume and with unusually broad clinical reach.
The posting closes with no ambiguity about the department’s expectations. This is a search for a physician who can help drive oncology imaging, theranostics, and translational research inside a large, highly connected academic system. The constraints are exacting, and the clinical remit is wide. That is the point.