Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed the integration of a virtual education curriculum to support radiation oncologists in training. We report outcomes from Radiation Oncology Virtual Education Rotation (ROVER) 2.0, a supplementary virtual educational curriculum created for radiation oncology residents globally. A prospective cohort of residents completed surveys before and after the live virtual webinar sessions (pre- and post-surveys, respectively). Live sessions were structured as complex gray-zone cases across various core disease sites. Resident demographics and responses were summarized using means, standard deviations, and proportions. Nine ROVER sessions were held from October 2020 to June 2021. A total of 1487 registered residents completed the pre-survey, of which 786 attended the live case discussion and 223 completed post-surveys. A total of 479 unique radiation oncology residents (of which 95, n=19.8%, were international attendees) from 147 institutions (national, n=81, 55.1%; international, n=66, 44.9%) participated in the sessions. There was similar participation across post-graduate year (PGY) 2 through 5 (range n=86 to n=105). Of the 122 unique resident post-surveys, nearly all reported learning through the virtual structure as "very easy" or "easy" (97.5%, n=119). A majority rated the ROVER 2.0 educational sessions to be "valuable or "very valuable" (99.2%, n=121), and the panelists-attendee interaction as "appropriate" (97.5%, n=119). Virtual live didactics aimed at radiation oncology residents are feasible. These results suggest that the adoption of the ROVER 2.0 curricula may help improve radiation oncology resident education.

View details for DOI 10.1007/s13187-022-02216-1

View details for PubMedID 36083458