PROshot News: A Novel Avenue for Continuing Radiation Oncology Education

Abstract

<h3>Purpose/Objective(s)</h3> The growth in the number of reported scientific results over the last decade has been logarithmic, posing a growing critical barrier for practicing oncologists striving to stay current on the best available cancer care. This remains a contributing factor to rising rates of physician burnout. At the same time, practicing physicians have a growing disgruntlement with mandated, formalized continuing medical education (CME) that is often costly—both in monetary value and time spent—without affording corresponding educational value. As such, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) has recently responded with a call for "effective and efficient" education that works to enhance clinical delivery of care in a truly continual manner. PROshot (formerly known as QuadShot News) was developed to be a uniquely practical and effective web-based newsletter for radiation oncologists. We hypothesize it will prove a popular way for trainees and practitioners to stay informed of trial updates and policy developments that influence clinical practice. <h3>Materials/Methods</h3> Using an email newsletter, weekly quiz, web archive and audible podcast, pertinent research results and policy updates are disseminated in a highly-accessible and digestible way. Updates are formatted in succinct blurbs that are both quick and engaging. User data is hosted by the MailChimp marketing automation platform with built-in real-time analytics. Consumer engagement is measured by (1) email open rates, (2) embedded link clicks, and (3) individual consumer engagement. To capture individual metrics, MailChimp assigns each subscriber an engagement level: opening no more than 1 of the last 12 emails and clicking no more than 1 link (rare), opening 2-4 of the last 12 emails and clicking 2-4 links (sometimes), or opening 5 or more of the last 12 emails and clicking several links (often). Descriptive statistics only were utilized for data analysis. <h3>Results</h3> The inaugural newsletter was sent to roughly 20 beta users in June 2017. It has since demonstrated consistent substantial monthly growth via consumer-to-consumer referrals to now (as of March 1, 2021) reach 2263 subscribers. Of these, 93.6% (n = 2123) are US residents, a number representing nearly half of practicing radiation oncologists nationwide. More importantly, throughout our continued growth, daily user engagement and click rates currently average 52.9% and 11.0%, respectively, compared to the medical industry average of 21.7% and 2.5%. Currently, 24% of subscribers rarely engage, 4% sometimes engage, and 69% often engage, with the remaining 3% too new to be assigned. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Our analytics establish proof of concept with clear sustainable growth and substantial daily engagement. Given our rapid initial success with grassroots marketing, we expect PROshot will transform the paradigm of lifelong learning by utilizing creative continuing medical education methodology designed for the modern radiation oncologist.