What do you think is the #1 issue facing our specialty today?

[med2006McGill]

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Hi guys,

I'm trying to prepare for my interviews (in Canada), and I'm don't have any brilliant ideas for the following questions.

- What do you think is the #1 issue facing our specialty today?
- What problems do you think our specialty will face in the next 5/10 years?

I can think of so many positive features of rad onc, but no many negative aspects. The only potential problems I can think of are possible decline in job availability and difficulty keeping up with radiobiologic concepts. Any suggestions? Thx!

 

[3dtp]

Hi guys,

I'm trying to prepare for my interviews (in Canada), and I'm don't have any brilliant ideas for the following questions.

- What do you think is the #1 issue facing our specialty today?
- What problems do you think our specialty will face in the next 5/10 years?

I can think of so many positive features of rad onc, but no many negative aspects. The only potential problems I can think of are possible decline in job availability and difficulty keeping up with radiobiologic concepts. Any suggestions? Thx!

Cost of technology and accessability. We can no longer justify a Theratron (Co-60) for the precise field techniques in 3d conformal RT. That implies increasing expense for equipment capable of delivering very high precision fields, imaging equipment capable of imaging tumor regions precisely and the accessibility of this costly technology to the population.

It's worse on your side of the border where the provinces haven't any money, Ottawa doesn't have any money and the regional centers are all full. So, they come south and pay cash when they can, but the issue looms large in the states too. I was in Halifax a couple of years ago when the Health Ministers had a big meeting on the cutbacks in the national health program. There weren't many happy people there.