"...and became keenly aware of the lack of didactic programming and schooled educators in many of our training programs".
I fail to understand why it is SO difficult for the ACGME and ASTRO to grasp that soon there will be NO MORE RADIOBIOLOGISTS, only cancer biologists and rad onc physician-scientists. And NONE of us – who are still around, that is – have any "schooling" whatsoever in education, nor do, or will, any of the younger faculty gradually replacing us.
Cancer biologists as a rule don't know much about radiobiology, let alone radiation oncology, so how are they supposed to develop and teach a radiation/cancer biology course? Plus, they all do research first and everything else second, so even if they wanted to learn a new field, they wouldn't have time.
As for the rad onc physician-scientists, they'll likely be the ones carrying the torch for the field of radiobiology (to the extent that their own rad bio education was adequate), but they also have much more important things to do than organize and teach a course, especially during their first decade of independence. A lecture here or there, sure, but responsibility for an entire course?
And like any training program is going to spend money to hire a full-time biology faculty member
only for teaching purposes, and not for a revenue-generating research program as well? HA! The fact is that I'm pretty sure I'm the
only radiobiologist in the country whose main job responsibility is teaching, and trust me when I say that I'm <ahem> "under-employed".
Meanwhile, one possible solution, namely to allow programs that lack a critical mass of biologists to join courses based at larger programs via teleconference or web meeting, is being threatened by the other proposed programatic change mandating "...an
on-site didactic educational program core curriculum..."
Frankly, this entire thing is ridiculous.