ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2718

Interdisciplinary - Education in radiation therapy

ESTRO 2024

From February to October 2023 we received 76 answers: 35 (46.1%) were medical oncologists, 32 (42.1%) were radiation oncologists, 17.1% were medical physicists, and one (1.3%) geneticist. Forty-one (53.9%) of the participants finished their training, while 29 (38.2%) were still in training. Sixteen (21.1%) were Ph.D. students, 6 (7.9%) already finished their Ph.D., 7 (9.2%) were part of academia, 2 (2.6%) were post-doc and 1 (1.3%) was a researcher. The majority (85.6%) were in the 25-35 years group. Forty-four (57.9) were working in a University hospital, 17 (22.4%) in a public hospital, 24 (31.6%) in a private clinic, 9 (11.8%) in a University, and 1 (1.3%) in a private company. The majority (59.2%) of the participants were not active in research. Participants who were involved in research (Section B) considered the support they are receiving to be scientifically performant as sufficient (22.6%), insufficient (45.2%), or inexistent (12.9%). There were no answers for the "excellent" option, and 19.4% did not want to answer. during 2022, 51.6% of those involved in research published papers in ISI journals and 19.4% in BDI journals. Twenty-nine percent did not publish anything. Financial support for training, attending scientific meetings, or publishing was received from the hospital (12.9%), professional society (32.3%), pharma industry (35.5%), or other sources (32.3%). No financial support was received by 32.3% of the young oncologists who were active in research. Participants who were not involved in research (Section C) were asked if they would be interested in the scientific activities and 62.2% responded affirmatively. Only 6.7% were not interested, and 26.7% were undecided. Two participants (4.4%) stated that they were previously involved, but gave up. The main motivations to follow a scientific/academic career in the future were professional satisfaction (77.8%) and contributing to the training of younger colleagues (48.9%). When asked if they have access to papers that are not open access, 75.6% admitted to using "sci-hub" type websites, 26.7% had access through the professional society, 24.4 from authors or other colleagues, 17.8% through the University, 22.2& from other sources and 13.3% declared to read only open access articles. In section D (Suggestions), all the participants were asked if they attended congresses or conferences. The majority attended national conferences (85.5%) or international ones (59.2%), mostly as participant (68.4%), but almost half as a speaker (48.7%). Most of the respondents (63.2%) considered that there is interest in research in young Romanian oncologists and 96.1% believe that there is a need for improvements in this field. Examples of solutions were: research module during residency (64.5%), mentorship (80.3%), more jobs in research (55.3%), institutional/ regional/ national projects (59.2%), and better support from professional societies (52.6%). More than half (55.3%) of the respondents think that the research modules would be helpful for clinicians, too.

Conclusion:

There is significant interest in research/scientific activities among Romanian young professionals active in the oncology field. The current infrastructure and support seem to be insufficient, so further improvements in educational programs and research funding are needed to allow for better performance in this specialty.

Keywords: research, young oncologists, education, survey

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