ESTRO Annual Report 2019

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The 4 th Edition of the ESTRO Core Curriculum in Radiation Oncology/Radiotherapy published and accepted by European medical specialists in 2019 STRATEGIC MILESTONE

ESTRO School

The stated aims of the core curriculum (CC) of the Euro- pean SocieTy for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) are to develop comparable standards for training in radiation oncology (RO) across Europe and to facilitate freemovement of healthcare professionals across borders.

The revision process was planned to be as inclusive as possible: it involved the European national societies for Radiation Oncology, UEMS delegates, representatives of the ESTRO young committee (yESTRO), experts from the other RO specialities, input from Australian and

In addition, it is hoped that such a CC will: improve the standard of training across Europe; ensure that the non-technical competences are given sufficient weight; and make explicit to politicians what an acceptable standard of training is. The first CC for RO was published in 1991. This was revised in 2004, and in 2011 the three disciplines active in the field of RO (clinicians, medical physicists and radiotherapists) published an update of their respective CCs simultaneously. There was a change in focus from theoretical knowledge and skills to competency-based education, based on the model of the Canadian Medical Education Directives for Specialists (CanMEDS) that identifies seven domains in which competencies need to be acquired. The European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) advises revision of themedical CC on a five-yearly basis. Advances in tumour biology, systemic therapy and radiotherapy planning support the need now for another revision. Reworking the CC has also enabled the inclusion of updates from the latest version of CanMEDS, which introduces the leadership role and the recommendations for interdisciplinary training of clinical cancer specialists from the European Commission Expert Group on Cancer Control.

Canadian radiation oncologists and advice from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The 4th Edition identifies 14 Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs), key tasks of a discipline that canbeentrusted toan individual who possesses the appropriate level of competence. Competences and enabling competences are set out for each EPA. Levels of proficiency expected at the end of training are described as levels of EPAs achieved for the different tumour sites. The characteristics of training programmes that enable trainees to develop these competencies, and the characteristics of assessment systems that provide assurance that they have developed them to the required level, are also described. Many people have worked very hard on this and it has paid off. The 4th edition of the ESTRO CC was recommended to the national societies in Milan in 2019 and has been endorsed by 29 national societies to date. The UEMS meeting in October 2019 accepted it as the European Training Requirement for RO/RT. The IAEA is using it as a basis for regions around the world to develop their own curricula and a survey has been performed that has investigated the implementation of the ESTRO CC in Europe, the results of which will be published soon.

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