Curriculum

            The radiation oncology residency at Jefferson includes carefully planned conferences, lectures, and examinations that fully prepare the resident for clinical practice, board certification, and research.

            The QA conference is the primary working conference of the department.  This meeting takes place two mornings per week in the Simon Kramer Conference Room:

• The QA conference begins with reviewing simulation films, port films, treatment prescriptions, and isodose plans for patients with new treatment specifications.  A resident or attending presents the diagnosis for each patient.  The conference focuses on treatment techniques and dose prescriptions. The meeting then reviews brief presentations by the residents or attendings of new patient consults.

• The meeting concludes with a review of patients scheduled for simulation and often with a five-minute presentation by a resident.  Residents may also present brief summaries of current literature relevant to recent clinical cases.

            Multidisciplinary site-specific conferences are held in conjunction with other Jefferson departments for CNS, lung, gastrointestinal, head-and-neck, breast, urologic, and gynecologic cancers.

            The department holds Journal Club meetings monthly between September and June.  Residents select articles with approval by the staff coordinator.  Facilitated by the presenting resident and attending, meeting participants critically review and discuss articles with regard to their statistical validity and clinical relevance.  Each academic year ends in an exam based on the articles presented during Journal Club,  further solidifying residents knowledge of clinical trials in preparation for the specialty board exam.

            The department’s staff medical physicists teach Radiation Physics, which is a comprehensive course.  The radiobiology staff teaches Radiation Biology, which covers basic principles of radiobiology and includes a molecular oncology lecture series which highlights molecular findings related to radiation oncology.  The courses each meet several times weekly from September through March.  Attendance is mandatory for residents during their first year of training and optional during the second year.  Both courses culminate in examinations. 
            Clinical staff in the department teach a biannual comprehensive course in clinical radiation oncology.  Lectures are given once a week and interactive seminar-like style is encouraged.  This course covers all pertinent disease sites in oncology.  A mini-course in medical statistics is offered every other year.