Tweets by SSO 2024 Annual Meeting

Icon Legend

This session is not in your schedule.

This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Presentation Icons

Recorded for On-Demand Viewing

Back

Quality

Quality & Disparities Parallel Session

81: Practice Patterns of Surgical Oncology Fellowship Graduates

Saturday, March 23, 2024

9:12am – 9:22am ET

Location: C102

Abstract Presenter(s)

Aaron T. Scott, MD

Fellow
City of Hope Medical Center, United States

Submitter(s)

Aaron T. Scott, MD

Fellow
City of Hope Medical Center, United States

Author(s)

Aaron T. Scott, MD

Fellow
City of Hope Medical Center, United States
Andrew H. Nguyen, MD

Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery
City of Hope Medical Center
Duarte, California, United States
CP

Christina Perez, n/a

Training Program Administrator
City of Hope Medical Center, United States
Laleh Melstrom, MD

Associate Professor
Division of Surgical Oncology, Department of Surgery, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA
La Verne, California, United States
Lily L. Lai, MD

Associate Professor
Department of Surgical Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA
Duarte, California, United States

Disclosure(s):

Aaron T. Scott, MD: No financial relationships to disclose

Laleh Melstrom, MD: No financial relationships to disclose

Introduction: Since its inception, surgical oncology training has emphasized multidisciplinary care and the treatment of rare and complex tumors without restriction to a specific organ system or anatomic region. As the complexity of cancer care increases, and surgical sub-specialization becomes the norm, it is unclear whether this broad-based training model remains optimal. In the present study we set out to characterize to what extent fellowship prepares graduates for clinical practice and career positions as well as to identify temporal trends in surgical oncology training and practice.

Methods: A 24-item survey was sent to graduates of an academic surgical oncology training program between the years 1981 and 2022. Questions focused on preparedness for practice upon graduation, current clinical and non-clinical activities, and the evolution of respondents’ practice since completion of fellowship.

Results: Ninety surveys were sent and 51 responses were received (57% response rate). As assessed on a 5-point rating scale, >90% of graduates indicated that they were adequately prepared (3) to very well prepared (5) to treat a range of malignancies including endocrine, breast, melanoma, gastric, pancreas, hepatobiliary, and colorectal cancers. Post-2011 graduates, when compared to pre-2011 graduates, reported being significantly better prepared to treat peritoneal surface and gynecologic malignancies and to perform robotic surgery. In contrast, earlier graduates indicated greater preparedness for the treatment of melanoma, extremity sarcoma, head and neck, esophageal and thoracic malignancies (p < 0.05). Respondents practiced broadly, treating a median of 5 disease sites. A minority, 27%, dedicated more than 50% of their time to a single disease site, most commonly breast. Despite the lack of formalized leadership training, 58.3% of pre-2011 and 40.9% of all graduates were in leadership positions. Respondents indicated that as their careers progressed, they focused on fewer disease sites and dedicated more time toward educational and administrative roles.

Conclusions: Most surgical oncology graduates treat malignancies across a variety of disease sites after training. These findings confirm that the ongoing broad-based surgical oncology training positions trainees well for surgical oncology practice, even in a landscape with many partially overlapping and competing surgical fellowships. In addition, many graduates are engaged in administrative and leadership roles suggesting that surgical oncologists may benefit from formalized leadership training during fellowship.

Learning Objectives:

Identify the current goals of surgical oncology training
Identify changes in the scope of surgical oncology training over time
Identify the scope of current practicing surgical oncologists and how this correlates with their training.