Oncology Patient Education and Student Education Program

Abstract

Background For many medical students interested in oncology during medical school, they will face a range of often disconnected activities. This may include participating in mentorship with faculty (shadowing/rotating), oncology lectures separated across multiple modules on step1/step2 topics, interest group meetings, volunteering, as well as participating in fundraisers or events through their local cancer center. We wanted to find a way to combine these efforts at the Georgia Cancer Center, as a model for other medical schools who also want to strength the oncology education and career exploration opportunities at their programs. Methods We paired teams of medical students with a physician-oncologist mentors covering every major oncology field from radiology/pathology to heme-onc to surgery and radiation oncology. Each team was given a topic (ie Breast Cancer, Pediatric Cancer etc) to produce a Patient Education video to inform patients about the most up-to-date cancer prevention and screening initiatives. In addition, these teams also raised money for our local 'Unite in the Fight' fundraiser supporting the Georgia Cancer Center (GCC). The videos they produced were shown to the participants of main event of the fundraiser. Next, the teams were tasked with producing Student education videos that focused on high yield step review for their same topics. These videos were judged by a panel of medical educators, oncologists, and cancer-survivors with awards for top patient education, top student education, and top fundraising team. Results We had 10 teams of students (48 students overall) participate, each producing Patient and Student videos that were highly rated by the judges. The Dean of Curriculum has now included the Student Education videos as part of the Capstone module that prepares M2′s for Step 1 and clerkships. We are working with the GCC to include the Patient Education videos on tablets provides to patients in the oncology clinic. Lastly, student teams raised over $10,000 from 167 donors for Unite in the Fight (total fundraiser that year was $50,000). Discussion We feel that we were able to provide a synergistic longitudinal experience that allowed 48 students to 1) explore oncology as a career, 2) contribute to patient education, 3) contribute to student education, and make an impact on the local cancer survivor community. By contrast, in years past oncology interest group events were attending by 5-10 students. Many students reported building strong mentorship relationships after working with their physician mentors over the year of this event. For many medical students interested in oncology during medical school, they will face a range of often disconnected activities. This may include participating in mentorship with faculty (shadowing/rotating), oncology lectures separated across multiple modules on step1/step2 topics, interest group meetings, volunteering, as well as participating in fundraisers or events through their local cancer center. We wanted to find a way to combine these efforts at the Georgia Cancer Center, as a model for other medical schools who also want to strength the oncology education and career exploration opportunities at their programs. We paired teams of medical students with a physician-oncologist mentors covering every major oncology field from radiology/pathology to heme-onc to surgery and radiation oncology. Each team was given a topic (ie Breast Cancer, Pediatric Cancer etc) to produce a Patient Education video to inform patients about the most up-to-date cancer prevention and screening initiatives. In addition, these teams also raised money for our local 'Unite in the Fight' fundraiser supporting the Georgia Cancer Center (GCC). The videos they produced were shown to the participants of main event of the fundraiser. Next, the teams were tasked with producing Student education videos that focused on high yield step review for their same topics. These videos were judged by a panel of medical educators, oncologists, and cancer-survivors with awards for top patient education, top student education, and top fundraising team. We had 10 teams of students (48 students overall) participate, each producing Patient and Student videos that were highly rated by the judges. The Dean of Curriculum has now included the Student Education videos as part of the Capstone module that prepares M2′s for Step 1 and clerkships. We are working with the GCC to include the Patient Education videos on tablets provides to patients in the oncology clinic. Lastly, student teams raised over $10,000 from 167 donors for Unite in the Fight (total fundraiser that year was $50,000). We feel that we were able to provide a synergistic longitudinal experience that allowed 48 students to 1) explore oncology as a career, 2) contribute to patient education, 3) contribute to student education, and make an impact on the local cancer survivor community. By contrast, in years past oncology interest group events were attending by 5-10 students. Many students reported building strong mentorship relationships after working with their physician mentors over the year of this event.