ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2712

Interdisciplinary - Education in radiation therapy

ESTRO 2024

Medical physicists have a central role in radiation oncology. Their strong leadership is required to implement new techniques and technologies efficiently and safely, as well as to ensure optimal workflow during planning and treatment of patients. In recent years, the speed of changes and level of complexity in the field of radiation oncology has increased enormously. Future leadership in medical physics, both within research and clinical work, will therefore require a diverse set of competences and skills, such as in choice and implementation of advanced technologies, multidisciplinary teamwork and change management. Considering the interdisciplinary nature of radiation oncology, the input from the physics community is essential both at an operative and at a strategic level. The ESTRO Physics Future Initiative on leadership developed a survey which aimed to map the emerging needs for leadership education and training for medical physicists in Europe.

Material/Methods:

In spring 2023, a survey with 22 questions was sent by email to all ESTRO physics members, distributed to medical physics national societies in Europe and shared on social media. The target group included medical physicists in radiation oncology working in hospitals, universities and industry, and in particular those with leadership experience and/or interest in developing leadership competences. Leadership was broadly defined as both formal and informal leadership roles. This included leadership with personnel, responsibility for budget and strategy, leadership of both medical physicists and multidisciplinary groups, and also leadership of research projects and/or developments in the clinic.

Results:

Answers from 436 respondents (203 females/225 males/8 other) were collected from 50 countries with 85% of answers coming from European countries. The United Kingdom (23%), Italy (15%) and Sweden (11%) had the highest number of respondents. The majority of respondents (74%) had more than ten years of experience in medical physics, and many (65%) had experience with various leadership tasks. Of those that were in a leadership position, 63% were leading a group of less than ten persons (Figure 1). As many as 41% were leading multidisciplinary teams, whereas 48% were leading medical physics only teams. Notably, 60% of those currently in leadership roles had no formal leadership education, and of those that had leadership education, 30% had national non-degree courses while only 8% had a formalized leadership degree (Figure 2). Nearly all (89%) of respondents would like ESTRO to provide leadership training for medical physicists, with dedicated leadership courses and mentoring networks as the preferred activities. If such training were to be available, the respondents would like to both attend as students and as teachers, as well as being both mentors and mentees. The currently available leadership course by ESTRO, the multidisciplinary course Foundations of Leadership in Radiation Oncology (FLiRO), was not well known among the respondents.

Figure 1 . Distribution of the size of the groups lead by medical physicists. Respondents were able to select only one answer.