Cancer Topics - COVID-19’s Impact on Oncology Trainees

In this episode of the ASCO Education Podcast, moderator Dr. Annie Im speaks with fellows and training program directors about oncology training during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring Drs. Kathryn Bollin (director), Farah Nasraty (fellow), Jonathan Berry (fellow), Nino Balanchivadze (fellow), and Nishin Bhadkamkar (director). Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts | Additional resources: elearning.asco.org | Contact Us

Air Date: 5/26/2021

TRANSCRIPT

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SPEAKER: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This is not a substitute for medical care, and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.

ANNIE IM: Hello, and welcome to ASCO's podcast episode focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on oncology fellows and training programs. My name is Dr. Annie Im. And I'm an associate professor of medicine and the Fellowship Program Director at the University of Pittsburgh. I am pleased to be joined by our five guest speakers today.

NINA BALANCHIVADZE: Hello my name is Nina Balanchivadze. I'm a second year fellow at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

JONATHAN BERRY: Hi, my name is Jonathan Berry. I'm a first year fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess in Boston, Massachusetts.

NISHIN BHADKAMKAR: Hi, I'm Nishin Bhadkamkar. I'm an associate professor in the departments of general oncology and gastrointestinal medical oncology. I'm at MD Anderson Cancer Center. And I'm the Program Director of the Hematology Oncology Fellowship Program.

KATHERINE BOLLIN: Hello, everyone. I'm Katherine Bollin. I'm the Associate Program Director for Hematology Oncology at Scripps MD Anderson Cancer Center in San Diego. And I'm also the Wellness Chair for the GME Division of Physician Wellness, and a medical oncologist specializing in cutaneous oncology.

FARAH NASRATY: Hi, Everyone. I'm Farah Nasraty. I'm a third year hematology oncology fellow at Scripps Clinic MD Anderson in San Diego, California.

ANNIE IM: Thank you. So let's get right into it. First, let me ask how are training programs adjusted at your institution during the COVID-19 pandemic? What was the impact on learning? What adjustments did your institution make? And what has worked well that you can share with the treating program community? Let's start with Dr. Bhadkamkar.

NISHIN BHADKAMKAR: When the pandemic hit us, we obviously had to rapidly make changes to our clinical and educational programs. I think the first change that came about was transitioning to telemedicine for many of our outpatient visits. And obviously this had an impact on outpatient rotations for our trainees. At the same time, we also changed all of our didactic programming to the virtual format. And this also had to be done fairly quickly to meet institutional requirements.

And what we found in making these changes was first and foremost on the clinical side that trainees on outpatient rotation definitely had a perception that their learning would be adversely impacted by having less in-person interactions. And so we really relied on our rotation coordinators to make sure that fellows were involved in the telemedicine platforms to talk about decision making, and to interact with the patients. Obviously, there's no way to completely recreate the interaction. But we wanted there to be the element of fellow talking to patient, than fellow talking to the attending, and then all three again coming together to talk about the treatment plan.

With regard to education, we certainly found that there was a social element that is important to learning that it was more difficult to recreate on a virtual platform. However, there were certainly advantages to the virtual setting in the sense that it allowed people to connect from different campuses. It allowed some people to participate who perhaps in a live setting would be less likely to speak up. And so using chat features and other elements, we found that there was a segment of our trainees who actually were participating more than they would have in our normal format. So clearly there were advantages and disadvantages. But I think overall it was a necessary change, and one that I think trainees in the end embraced and were able to make the most of.

NINA BALANCHIVA...