Volunteer Spotlight – MP: Down to ‘Only’ One Role, She Remains an Active Volunteer
By ABR Communications Manager Rodney Campbell
December 2025;18(6):9
Just call her a recovering multi-tasker.
Leah Schubert, PhD, has given her time and expertise as an oral examiner and exam question writer. She says she’s happy to concentrate on giving medical physics oral certifying exams these days.
“I’m down to only one role,” she said.
Dr. Schubert is an associate professor and director of the medical physics residency program in the radiation oncology department’s division of medical physics at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. She has been an ABR volunteer for a decade, starting as a therapeutic medical physics (TMP) question writer for the Part 2 Exam.
As is the case with every exam question writer, it required time for Dr. Schubert to feel comfortable doing the job.
“It took me at least the entire first year,” she said. “There’s good training on what I like to call the mechanics of questions. But figuring out the content took me a while.”
When the time came to compile the exam, Dr. Schubert was starting to feel more like she belonged. An in-person meeting, led by committee chair Sonja Dieterich, PhD, was the clincher.
“Sonja would prioritize getting the newer people on the committee to the onsite meeting,” Dr. Schubert said. “That made a huge difference for me, the camaraderie and meeting everyone. You learn so much in those two days when you’re together.”
She fit so well that she eventually was named chair of the TMP Part 2 Committee. When Matthew Podgorsak, PhD, ABR Board of Trustees chair, invited her in 2022 to take the role, Dr. Schubert was caught off-guard and a little hesitant.
“I definitely did not see it coming,” she said. “When Matt called me, I was wondering if he was sure that he called the right person. I asked him to let me think about it because I knew how important the position was, and I wanted to make sure I did a good job.”
One of her initiatives as chair might sound like a minor detail, but Dr. Schubert found that it generated positive results. She encouraged committee members to turn on their cameras when getting together remotely, allowing them to interact more personally as they produced and critiqued exam questions.
“I wanted to have camaraderie within the committee,” she said. “When you’re giving feedback, you want open discussion, you want people to feel comfortable because you spend so much time crafting these questions, and it’s really hard to do.”
Daniel Létourneau, PhD, who assumed Dr. Schubert’s spot as committee chair this year, shadowed her for a year as the associate chair. He said the experience showed that she made members feel comfortable contributing to the committee’s success and that they had a good time along the way.
“As the chair, Dr. Schubert provided exemplary leadership and guidance to both new and existing members,” he said. “Her outstanding communication skills enabled her to efficiently convey the committee’s goals, objectives, and requirements. She played a significant role in fostering a collegial environment and nurturing a strong team spirit among the members. She made the committee meetings interesting and enjoyable.”
An oral examiner since 2020, Dr. Schubert has seen anxious candidates. Although she knows she can’t hint at answers, she recognizes times when examinees are on the right path, but their stress is a roadblock.
It’s an examiner’s job to be patient and discover whether the candidate knows the material.
“The point is recognizing that this is a very challenging situation and there might be nerves getting in the way,” she said. “If you give them a chance to show their knowledge, I think that’s helpful.”
Nerves aren’t relegated to one side of the remote exam screen. Even with all her experience, Dr. Schubert said she still feels edgy as an examiner.
“I’m being an interviewer,” she said. “I’ve done this before. Why am I the one who’s nervous? Because I can feel the importance of it.”
Even though she’s content to focus on one ABR volunteer committee, Dr. Schubert looks back fondly on her days as a question writer.
“Over the years, it became my favorite committee because of the members and the productivity,” she said. “I think the quality of the exam is really the whole point of all of this, and I felt proud of our contributions.”
