I believe we should be trained as clinical oncologists. We should be able to give concurrent chemo and immuno in the nonmetastatic setting. This is our best way forward, but the med oncs will never give this part of their turf up.
I think dual boarded in oncology sounds great on paper, but I have only met one person in the last 20 years who actually did it. There must be some reason so few do it. I know that laziness or lack of brain power, especially among the last 2 decades of trainees, is not the cause. Training fatigue maybe?
It is hard to go back to being a resident once you get out and make a decent salary, buy a house, raise a family and start paying off student loans. It's even harder if you have to go through the match again and potentially get uprooted.
If you do get through the med onc fellowship, there will be a great temptation to specialize in just one organ system, and also narrow to either rad onc or just med onc at that point. It is very hard to keep up with all the new med onc drugs coming nowadays unless one subspecializes to one or two organ sites.
I guess you could be a lung rad onc and lung med onc at the same time, but unless you build your own center, or join a mega department, very few people are looking to hire a single FTE who is both a rad onc and med onc for the same disease site.
Has anyone on here ever actually gone back for residency or fellowship in a non-rad onc program? What was it like?
