VIDEO: Outpatient, multidiscplinary oncology shows 'the power of collaboration'

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Residents typically encounter cancers in the inpatient setting, where patients are very sick from advanced disease or treatment related toxicity. However, most of oncology is now practiced in the outpatient setting, where cancer treatment is really like any chronic disease with close follow up and a holistic attitude towards determining the correct course of treatment and managing side effects. So I would encourage residents to look for outpatient oncology exposure. They will be impressed and motivated by how rapidly new treatments are adapted from clinical trial to practice, and the everyday use of genomic assays to determine treatment, and even to educate our patients.

So residents will quickly learn how biopsies and even repeat biopsies are absolutely essential to establishing cancer diagnosis and vital in determining the course of treatment. There is also no better way, in my opinion, to appreciate the power of collaboration, surgeons, and radiologists, pathologists, and just so many other experts in tumor board discussions to determine the course of care for their cancer patient.

I would encourage all residents to try to attend some of these discussions to enhance their own learning, because in the end, cancer is still such a discouraging and devastating diagnosis, and I hope that trainees can appreciate that with biomarker directed therapies, there is much more hope for their metastatic patients.