Educational Growth: Seeding a Bright Tomorrow

Welcome to the March issue of ARO! As spring ushers in green foliage and longer daylight, we are pleased to focus this edition on another theme of growth and enlightenment: education, which has always been a very keen interest of mine.

Continuous improvement within education is imperative to advance best practices in teaching and, in turn, training a diverse future workforce in evidence-based cancer treatment. These are important take-home messages in the special feature, Future of Radiation Oncology Education: Transforming Scholarly Teaching Into Medical Education Scholarship. Offering SA-CME credit, this insightful article delves into gaps and gains surrounding curricula, mentorship, technology-oriented and simulation-based teaching, continuing education, artificial intelligence and other areas that can augment undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within radiation oncology.

Exploring the role of patient education, Personalizing Approaches to Patient Education Throughout the Radiation Oncology Workflow offers a pragmatic overview of multiple educational modalities for patients and how to maximize their use. The article reviews costs and benefits, optimal usage, and ways to adapt tools — such as virtual reality, videos, websites, and the role of the medical physicist in patient education — to personalize the educational experience.

On the resident front, Navigating Radiation Oncology Emergencies: Are We Maximizing Inpatient Call for Residents? is an excellent column describing optimal formats for inpatient call and how to strengthen what can be a highly educational opportunity for residents.

Please also enjoy this issue’s case reports on several unique topics, as well as an interesting research article on proton vs photon stereotactic radiosurgery for vestibular schwannoma.

Beyond these pages, we are excited to share a few updates from ARO medical student committees. Anthony Alanis, Bahareh Sharafi, and William Tyree, members of the Future Content Committee, have launched an informative quarterly enewsletter, RadOnc Student Scan. Designed to boost awareness and knowledge of radiation oncology among medical students, each issue explains areas of radiation oncology physics, biology, and clinical practice; highlights topical research; offers a radiation oncologist Q&A; and lists opportunities. Visit https://appliedradiationoncology.com/news/ARO-Student-Voice to check out their great work.

In the Podcast and Webinar Committee, members are lining up interviews for the new podcast series, Beam On. The first episode is in production as of press time, and features student Ellie Thompson and Dr. Steven Octavianus, MD, discussing radiation therapy in Indonesia. Check our website soon for the exciting debut.

In other news, we are delighted to introduce 3 new members to the ARO editorial advisory board: Bree R. Eaton, MD, associate professor and pediatric medical director, Emory Proton Therapy Center, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University; Austin J. Sim, MD, JD, assistant professor, James Cancer Hospital, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Meng Xu Welliver, MD, PhD, associate professor, Mayo Clinic, Rochester. Bringing their respective expertise in pediatrics; advocacy/legislation; and thoracic cancers, soft-tissue sarcomas and blood cancers (among other areas), we are thrilled to welcome them on board.

Rotating off the board are several members who have spent many years aiding the development and expansion of the journal. We are deeply indebted to Jeffrey C. Buchsbaum, MD, PhD; Daniel J. Indelicato, MD; and Mohamed A. Elshaikh, MD, for their exceptional, dedicated service to ARO!

We hope you enjoy the issue and wish you a bright new season of growth in 2023!