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      Quality of teaching radiation oncology in Germany—where do we stand? : Results from a 2019 survey performed by the working group “young DEGRO” of the German Society of Radiation Oncology

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          Abstract

          Purpose

          Medical students’ knowledge of radiation oncology (RO) is of increasing importance with a rising prevalence of malignancies. However, RO teaching in medical schools is heterogeneous and has not been analyzed at a federal level yet. Therefore, the following survey aims to provide a national overview of RO teaching in Germany.

          Methods

          A questionnaire containing multiple-choice and free-text questions covering the extent and topics of RO teaching was sent to RO departments of all university hospitals in Germany and was answered by the heads of department/main lecturers.

          Results

          24/35 (68.6%) RO departments returned completed forms. Most faculties employ lectures (91.7%), seminars (87.5%), and practical/bedside training (75.0%), whereas training in radiation biology and medical physics are rare (25% and 33.3%, respectively). Main topics covered are general RO (100%), radiation biology (91.7%), and side effects (87.5%). Regarding RO techniques and concepts, image-guided and intensity-modulated radiotherapy are taught at all faculties, followed by palliative and stereotactic techniques (87.5% each). Notably, all departments offered at least a partial rotation in RO in conjunction with radiology and/or nuclear medicine departments in the last year of medical school, while only 70.8% provided a complete rotation in RO. In addition, 57.1% of the departments have taken measures concerning the upcoming National Competence-Based Learning Objectives Catalogue (NKLM) for medical education.

          Conclusion

          RO plays an integral but underrepresented role in clinical medical education in Germany, but faces new challenges in the development of practical and competence-based education, which will require further innovative and interdisciplinary concepts.

          Electronic supplementary material

          The online version of this article (10.1007/s00066-020-01623-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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          Most cited references19

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          Milestones and Millennials: A Perfect Pairing—Competency-Based Medical Education and the Learning Preferences of Generation Y

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            What Are Medical Students in the United States Learning About Radiation Oncology? Results of a Multi-Institutional Survey

            We used an electronic survey to quantify knowledge about radiation therapy among first and fourth year medical students, and primary care physician attendings (PCPs) at 7 academic US hospitals. We found that, although medical knowledge of radiation therapy principles improves from first to fourth years, large knowledge gaps still exist between students, PCPs, and radiation oncology attendings. Basic misconceptions persist among a minority of students and PCPs. The purposes are: (1) to assess the exposure that medical students (MSs) have to radiation oncology (RO) during the course of their medical school career, as evidenced by two time points in current medical training (i.e. 1st vs. 4th year; MS1s and MS4s, respectively); and, (2) to assess the knowledge of MS1s, MS4s, and primary care physicians (PCPs) about the appropriateness of RT in cancer management as compared to RO attendings. We developed and beta tested an electronic survey, divided into 3 parts: (1) RO job descriptions, (2) appropriateness of RT, and (3) toxicities of RT. Surveys were distributed to 7 US medical schools. A concordance of >90% (either “yes” or “no”) among RO attendings in an answer was necessary to determine the “correct” answer; and to compare to other subgroups using a chi-squared test (p 1 of 5 respondents. Multiple non-toxicities of RT (e.g. emitting low-level radiation from the treatment site), were incorrectly identified as toxicities by > 1 of 5 respondents. MS4s/PCPs with an RO rotation in medical school had improved scores in all prompts. Although MS knowledge of general RT principles improves from 1st to 4th year, a large knowledge gap still exists between MSs, current PCPs, and ROs. Some basic misconceptions of RT persist among a minority of MSs and PCPs. We recommend implementing formal education in RO fundamentals during the core curriculum of medical school.
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              Radiation oncology in undergraduate medical education: a literature review.

              To review the published literature pertaining to radiation oncology in undergraduate medical education. Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid MEDLINE Daily Update and EMBASE databases were searched for the 11-year period of January 1, 1998, through the last week of March 2009. A medical librarian used an extensive list of indexed subject headings and text words. The search returned 640 article references, but only seven contained significant information pertaining to teaching radiation oncology to medical undergraduates. One article described a comprehensive oncology curriculum including recommended radiation oncology teaching objectives and sample student evaluations, two described integrating radiation oncology teaching into a radiology rotation, two described multidisciplinary anatomy-based courses intended to reinforce principles of tumor biology and radiotherapy planning, one described an exercise designed to test clinical reasoning skills within radiation oncology cases, and one described a Web-based curriculum involving oncologic physics. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first review of the literature pertaining to teaching radiation oncology to medical undergraduates, and it demonstrates the paucity of published work in this area of medical education. Teaching radiation oncology should begin early in the undergraduate process, should be mandatory for all students, and should impart knowledge relevant to future general practitioners rather than detailed information relevant only to oncologists. Educators should make use of available model curricula and should integrate radiation oncology teaching into existing curricula or construct stand-alone oncology rotations where the principles of radiation oncology can be conveyed. Assessments of student knowledge and curriculum effectiveness are critical. Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                michael.oertel@ukmuenster.de
                Journal
                Strahlenther Onkol
                Strahlenther Onkol
                Strahlentherapie Und Onkologie
                Springer Berlin Heidelberg (Berlin/Heidelberg )
                0179-7158
                1439-099X
                4 May 2020
                4 May 2020
                2020
                : 196
                : 8
                : 699-704
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.16149.3b, ISNI 0000 0004 0551 4246, Department of Radiation Oncology, , University Hospital Muenster, ; Muenster, Germany
                [2 ]GRID grid.411097.a, ISNI 0000 0000 8852 305X, Department of Radiation Oncology and Cyberknife Center, , University Hospital of Cologne, ; Cologne, Germany
                [3 ]GRID grid.275559.9, ISNI 0000 0000 8517 6224, Department of Radiation Oncology, , Jena University Hospital, ; Jena, Germany
                [4 ]Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany
                [5 ]GRID grid.7497.d, ISNI 0000 0004 0492 0584, partner site Munich, , German Cancer Consortium (DKTK), ; Munich, Germany
                [6 ]GRID grid.7497.d, ISNI 0000 0004 0492 0584, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), ; Heidelberg, Germany
                [7 ]GRID grid.461820.9, ISNI 0000 0004 0390 1701, Department of Radiation Oncology, , University Hospital Halle (Saale), ; Halle (Saale), Germany
                [8 ]GRID grid.412468.d, ISNI 0000 0004 0646 2097, Department of Radiation Oncology, , University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel, ; Kiel, Germany
                Article
                1623
                10.1007/s00066-020-01623-x
                7385026
                32367455
                b323030a-e956-4406-8c92-2208669ae01f
                © The Author(s) 2020

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 21 January 2020
                : 15 April 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (1056)
                Categories
                Original Article
                Custom metadata
                © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020

                Oncology & Radiotherapy
                medical education,radiooncology teaching,innovative teaching,competence-based learning,nklm

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