Abstract
As the population of patients with cancer and survivors grows, physician knowledge of oncology clinical care and research is increasingly important. Despite this patient population growth, medical students and non-oncology physicians report insufficient oncologic and survivorship care training. First-year students at a single US medical school completing a summer research experience were invited to participate in integrated Scholars in Oncology-Associated Research (SOAR) program. SOAR seeks to broaden students’ understanding of multidisciplinary and interprofessional oncology clinical care and research. SOAR consists of three components: structured didactics, multidisciplinary tumor board attendance, and interprofessional shadowing. A mixed-methods approach investigated whether student knowledge improved after SOAR. Thirty-three students enrolled in SOAR (20 in 2015, 13 in 2016) and completed pre-assessments. Twenty-five (75.8%) students completed SOAR and post-assessments. Self-reported understanding of clinical (2[2, 3] vs. 4[4], p < 0.01) and research oncology (2[2, 3] vs. 4[4], p < 0.01) improved after SOAR. Understanding of individual disciplines also significantly improved. When describing clinical oncology, responses written post-SOAR were more comprehensive, averaging 3.7 themes per response vs. 2.8 on pre-assessments (p = 0.03). There were more references to “survivorship” as a component of oncology on post-assessments (0[0.0%] vs. 7[28.0%], p < 0.01) and “screening/prevention” (2[6.1%] vs. 7[28.0%], p = 0.03). Additionally, students more often described cancer care as a continuum on post-assessments (4[12.1%] vs. 11[44.0%], p = 0.01). A structured didactic and experiential introduction to oncology, SOAR, was successfully piloted. SOAR improved participant understanding of oncology and its distinct clinical and research disciplines. Future work will focus on expanding SOAR into a longitudinal oncology curriculum.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Siegel R, Ma J, Zou Z, Jemal A (2014) Cancer statistics, 2014. CA Cancer J Clin 64:9–29. doi:10.3322/caac.21208
Miller KD, Siegel RL, Lin CC et al (2016) Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics, 2016. CA Cancer J Clin 66:271–289. doi:10.3322/caac.21349
Oskvarek J, Braunstein S, Farnan J et al (2016) Medical student knowledge of oncology and related disciplines: a targeted needs assessment. J Cancer Educ 31:529–532. doi:10.1007/s13187-015-0876-2
Potosky AL, Han PKJ, Rowland J et al (2011) Differences between primary care physicians’ and oncologists’ knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding the care of cancer survivors. J Gen Intern Med 26:1403–1410. doi:10.1007/s11606-011-1808-4
Akthar AS, Hellekson CD, Ganai S et al (2016) Interdisciplinary oncology education: a national survey of trainees and program directors in the United States. J Cancer Educ. doi:10.1007/s13187-016-1139-6
Committee on Improving the Quality of Cancer Care Addressing the challenges of an aging population, board on health care services, institute of medicine (2013) delivering high-quality cancer care: charting a new course for a system in crisis. National Academies Press (US), Washington (DC)
Harris PA, Taylor R, Thielke R et al (2009) Research electronic data capture (REDCap)—a metadata-driven methodology and workflow process for providing translational research informatics support. J Biomed Inform 42:377–381. doi:10.1016/j.jbi.2008.08.010
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Dr. Golden reports a financial interest in RadOncQuestions, LLC and HemOncReview, LLC. No other conflicts of interest are reported.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.
Funding
This project was supported in part by NIH CTSA UL1 TR000430.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McKillip, R.P., Hahn, O.M., Bartkowiak, B. et al. Implementation of a Novel Medical School Multidisciplinary and Interprofessional Oncology Curriculum: a Mixed Method Study. J Canc Educ 34, 50–55 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-017-1264-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-017-1264-x