Abstract
Purpose: There is a paucity of formal clinician education concerning cancer survivorship care, which produces care barriers and poorer outcomes for survivors of childhood cancer. To address this, we implemented a curriculum in childhood cancer survivorship care for pediatric residents at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). We examined the efficacy of this curriculum following program completion. Methods: A case-based curriculum was created and integrated within existing educational structures using Kern’s model. We utilized the retrospective pre-posttest method to evaluate participating residents’ knowledge, clinical skills, and attitudes towards cancer survivorship topics before and after receiving the curriculum. Pre-posttest items were compared using paired t tests and one-sided binomial tests. We analyzed free-response question items for major themes using constant comparative methods. Results: Thirty-four residents completed the curriculum and its evaluation. Each assessment item significantly increased from pre- to post-curriculum; p < 0.05. Greater than 40% of residents improved in all but one assessment item post-curriculum; p < 0.05. Residents reported the curriculum enhanced their pediatric knowledge base (M = 3.24; SD = 0.65) and would recommend it to other residency programs; M = 3.24; SD = 0.69. Major themes included residents’ request for additional oncofertility information, training in counseling survivors, and cancer survivorship training opportunities. Conclusions: A cancer survivorship curriculum can successfully increase trainees’ knowledge, clinical skills, and comfort in discussing topics relevant to survivorship care. Implications for Cancer Survivors: With increasing numbers of childhood cancer survivors living into adulthood, residents will likely treat this population regardless of intended career path. This curriculum represents one method to deliver formal cancer survivorship training.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 651-658 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Cancer Survivorship |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Oct 1 2018 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding This study was funded by the Western Region of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors’ (W-APPD) Medical Education Research Grant (Award Number: #2017-106; Recipient: Lindsay F. Schwartz, MD) and the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) UCLA CTSI Grant Number UL1TR001881.
Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) in addition to Lonnie Zeltzer, MD, Margaret Stuber, MD, Theodore Moore, MD, and the UCLA Pediatric Residency Training Program leadership and staff, especially Alan Chin, MD, James Lee, MD, Jasen Liu, MD, and Savanna Carson, PhD. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords
- Childhood cancer survivors
- Curriculum creation
- Curriculum evaluation
- Graduate medical education
- Pediatric resident physicians
