Both conferences and courses are offered on a continual basis that residents are required to attend in order to be exposed to the full spectrum of content in Radiation Oncology.
Residents have the opportunity to learn from faculty, guest speakers, and peers in a myriad of venues, including several departmental as well as interdisciplinary conferences and tumor boards on a weekly basis. Residents also develop excellent presentation and speaking skills by frequently giving lectures and honing their teaching efforts.
Clinical Case Conferences
Twice a week, residents and faculty present Case Conferences that pertain to specified disease sites and relevant patient cases. Residents present ½ hour, concise power point presentations on a disease site, while faculty facilitate discussion and present patient cases to engage all learners in this interactive learning session. Both residents and faculty come prepared to teach and learn! Topics are presented in a longitudinal curricular approach so residents are exposed to all topics throughout the year rather than one month at a time.
The following elements are included in each Case Conference pertaining to the disease site:
- Work up, diagnosis and staging of the patient’s case
- Treatment options
- Particular radiation plan used to treat the patient
- Review of relevant sentinel studies or literature supporting the use of radiation for the patient
- Potential acute and long-term complications of the treatment
- Prognosis and other expected outcomes
- Relevant patient cases
Chart Rounds
Chart Rounds occur once a week and focus on our clinic patients starting treatment. Residents briefly present the patient’s diagnosis, stage, brief history, and a description of the treatment plan. Input is provided from faculty, physicists, dosimetrists, and staff.
Residents become very familiar with the patient’s treatment plan by displaying and describing relevant treatment fields and dosimetry, understanding how the GTVs, CTVs, and PTVs were constructed, and awareness of the goal doses to each PTV along with the doses to each dose-limiting structure.
Journal Club
Journal Club meets at least six times a year to focus on Practice-Based Learning and Improvement skills. The curriculum prepares residents to effectively investigate and evaluate their patient care practices, and appraise/ assimilate scientific evidence by utilizing an Evidence Based Medicine approach. Residents will increase their EBM skills, effectively be able to facilitate a Journal Club discussion and ultimately apply their knowledge to improve their own patient care.
Tumor Boards
Residents are required to attend specific disease-site Tumor Boards. Medical and allied professionals from a variety of departments attend tumor board conferences and focus on the interdisciplinary nature of patient care. The following Tumor Boards are scheduled 2-4 times a month.
- Melanoma
- Thoracic
- Sarcoma
- Lymphoma
- Gyn Onc
- Peds Onc
- Neuro-Path
- Genitourinary
- Head and Neck
- Breast
- Hepatic
Personal and Professional Development Series
To help residents grow personally, professionally, and healthfully, the Department offers this series to cover a variety of issues relevant to a resident’s life, practice and health. Residents meet with a variety of in-house guest speakers and discuss topics listed below. Additionally, every other year the department sponsors a Resident Retreat that focuses on resident wellness, team building and special topic issues.
- Giving Bad News
- Nursing Topics
- Impaired Residents/Faculty
- Billing and Coding
- Teaching Skills
- Cultural Diversity
- Pain Management
- Interviewing/CVs
- Stress Management
- Palliative Care and Hospice
- Ethics
- Finances
- Leadership Skills