Rad Onc Program Structure (electives, didactics)

[Gunderson12345]

Hello all,
I am a current rad onc resident and I am hoping to find out what other programs across the country offer in terms of elective time and research time. My own program is looking into making big changes and it would be very helpful to have a barometer of what is the norm in other programs. This might be helpful for applicants to keep track of what programs offer and for us lowly residents to see how our program stacks up against others in the country. If there's anything you feel uncomfortable answering, skip over it. Thanks in advance for taking the time to do this -- there doesn't seem to be a good place to find this information in a formal format.

Program:______ (if you feel uncomfortable stating your exact program, perhaps choose: Major Academic Center/Top 25 program and the region South/Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, West/Northwest)
Number of residents:_____
Number of Attendings:_______

1. Number of elective months:______
1a. Nature of elective months allowed: (Away rotations, in-house rotations such as Peds/Rads/HemeOnc etc and if these are required or suggested)
1c. Are you allowed to rotate in private practices? If so, for how long? (ie. Is there a rule for how your out-of-clinic elective time is to be spent)
1b. Do you have 'Clinical Electives' (resident sees and charts for Consult/SIM/Contouring/Physics Check, foregoing OTVs and FUPs and daily responsibilities otherwise required on standard clinical rotation)? Have you ever heard of a 'Clinical Elective'?

2. Number of research months:______
2a. Are receiving all research months contingent on submission or publication of paper:_____

3. Breakdown of didactics (other than physics, rad bio, M&M, chart rounds): (ex: M,W,F 1 hour 8-9am socratic teaching sessions/ASTRO videos/attending lectures/other resident lectures)____
3a. Do you have socratic style teaching sessions? If so, how often?
3b. Do you have an academic 'half day' (ie. >1 hour during clinic time when resident-specific teaching occurs)? If so, is this resident or attending led?
3c. Do you watch ASTRO videos as a form of official teaching?
3d. How many lectures do your attendings give yearly?
3e. Do you wish your didactic schedule were different/how could it be improved?

4. Do you have formal physics teaching? How many hours per week, at what time and for how many months?

5. Do you have formal radiobiology teaching? How many hours per week, at what time, and for how many months?

6. Do you cross-cover?

7. Do you have auto-contouring programs?

8. Do you have access to contour from home?

9. Do you have access to question banks (RadOncQuestions or other) paid for by program?

10. How many professional days do you get per year?

11. How many days off do you get (if other than standard)?

12. Do you have an educational fund? If so, how much is provided?

13. If you are presenting at a conference, does the department pay for your trip or a portion of your trip, or does this come from the remaining $ in your educational fund?

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this (hopefully some of you do!) - it is very much appreciated.

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[xrthopeful]

Some of this information might also be available for you in the interview google doc for this year as it gets filled out as well as last year's

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/2015-2016-interview-gossip-chit-chat.1161665/

 

[Chartreuse Wombat]

Hello all,
I am a current rad onc resident and I am hoping to find out what other programs across the country offer in terms of elective time and research time. My own program is looking into making big changes and it would be very helpful to have a barometer of what is the norm in other programs. This might be helpful for applicants to keep track of what programs offer and for us lowly residents to see how our program stacks up against others in the country. If there's anything you feel uncomfortable answering, skip over it. Thanks in advance for taking the time to do this -- there doesn't seem to be a good place to find this information in a formal format.

Program:______ (if you feel uncomfortable stating your exact program, perhaps choose: Major Academic Center/Top 25 program and the region South/Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, West/Northwest)
Number of residents:_____
Number of Attendings:_______

1. Number of elective months:______
1a. Nature of elective months allowed: (Away rotations, in-house rotations such as Peds/Rads/HemeOnc etc and if these are required or suggested)
1c. Are you allowed to rotate in private practices? If so, for how long? (ie. Is there a rule for how your out-of-clinic elective time is to be spent)
1b. Do you have 'Clinical Electives' (resident sees and charts for Consult/SIM/Contouring/Physics Check, foregoing OTVs and FUPs and daily responsibilities otherwise required on standard clinical rotation)? Have you ever heard of a 'Clinical Elective'?

2. Number of research months:______
2a. Are receiving all research months contingent on submission or publication of paper:_____

3. Breakdown of didactics (other than physics, rad bio, M&M, chart rounds): (ex: M,W,F 1 hour 8-9am socratic teaching sessions/ASTRO videos/attending lectures/other resident lectures)____
3a. Do you have socratic style teaching sessions? If so, how often?
3b. Do you have an academic 'half day' (ie. >1 hour during clinic time when resident-specific teaching occurs)? If so, is this resident or attending led?
3c. Do you watch ASTRO videos as a form of official teaching?
3d. How many lectures do your attendings give yearly?
3e. Do you wish your didactic schedule were different/how could it be improved?

4. Do you have formal physics teaching? How many hours per week, at what time and for how many months?

5. Do you have formal radiobiology teaching? How many hours per week, at what time, and for how many months?

6. Do you cross-cover?

7. Do you have auto-contouring programs?

8. Do you have access to contour from home?

9. Do you have access to question banks (RadOncQuestions or other) paid for by program?

10. How many professional days do you get per year?

11. How many days off do you get (if other than standard)?

12. Do you have an educational fund? If so, how much is provided?

13. If you are presenting at a conference, does the department pay for your trip or a portion of your trip, or does this come from the remaining $ in your educational fund?

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this (hopefully some of you do!) - it is very much appreciated.

The paper below is slightly dated but may give you some idea of the nature of the programs in the US
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21278559

 

[Gunderson12345]

These are both very helpful! Thank you both.

Now I realize I posted a beast up there - and for that I apologize.

If I had ONE question to ask that's actually pretty difficult to tease out it would be how many programs have an academic 'half-day' (ie. 3-4 hours during clinic time, once a week, scheduled) protected for resident teaching?

Or, phrased differently: how many hours per week do you have of clinical rad onc teaching (non-rad bio/physics/chart rounds)?

 

[kingphat42]

Since I'm going through the match right now, do you think in residency you learn best through attending didactics or is independent study more important?

 

[RadOncDoc21]

Since I'm going through the match right now, do you think in residency you learn best through attending didactics or is independent study more important?

"Independent study" typically means more clinical scut work for the residents.

 

[xrthopeful]

An organized education system is actually super important. Not many programs do a good job of it.

 

[Gunderson12345]

Attending didactics, when done well (ie. socratic teaching > prepared PPT), is really invaluable. But it's difficult in small-ish programs to get the attending's time blocked out of clinic to do this regularly.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

Attending didactics, when done well (ie. socratic teaching > prepared PPT), is really invaluable. But it's difficult in small-ish programs to get the attending's time blocked out of clinic to do this regularly.

Got to get those RVU's! I would even suggest residents rotate at a community hospital/free-standing center if that would allow a more valuable learning experience.