Adapting a medical school cancer research education program to the virtual environment

ABSTRACT

Background: As the number of patients with a cancer diagnosis grows in the United States, there is an increasing need for physician scientists with oncology-related research training to develop new approaches to screening, diagnosis, therapy, and survivorship. A single US medical school developed the National Cancer Institute-funded Scholars in Oncology-Associated Research (SOAR) cancer research education program. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SOAR transitioned from fully in-person in 2019 to virtual in 2020 and hybrid in 2021. This study examines whether the in-person, virtual, or hybrid formats provide better educational experiences as rated by participants. Methods: SOAR includes a seminar series, an 11-week full-time cancer research experience, weekly research cluster group meetings, and tumor board and interprofessional shadowing experiences. In 2019 all program activities were in-person. In 2020 all activities were virtual with the shadowing suspended. In 2021, seminars and tumor boards were virtual, shadowing was in-person, and all other activities were hybrid. Pre- and post-surveys were collected from all participants to assess understanding of oncology and associated medical specialties. How participant understanding of oncology and related specialties changed within each year's program was analyzed with a Wilcoxon rank-sum test. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to examine change in understanding between the cohorts. Results: 37 students participated in SOAR (2019 n = 11, 2020 n = 14, 2021 n = 12). Self-reported understanding of oncology as a clinical (p < 0.01 for all) and research discipline (p < 0.01 for all) improved within all three cohorts. There was no significant difference between each cohort's improvement in research understanding (p = 0.6158). However, there was a trend towards more of an improvement in the in-person cohort (p = 0.0796) for clinical understanding. There was no significant difference between each cohort's improvement in understanding of oncology-related disciplines such as medical oncology, radiation oncology, pediatric oncology, surgical oncology, and survivorship as both clinical and research disciplines (p > 0.1 for all). Conclusions: A virtual cancer research education program can be as effective as an in-person or hybrid program for research education although it may be suboptimal for learning about clinical oncology. Given the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, flexibility is needed in delivering cancer research education programs such as SOAR. With modern research methodology and communications technology, cancer research is becoming increasingly diverse and flexible in terms of research environment. If program leaders are steadfast in their adaptation of research education programs to a virtual or hybrid environment, participant understanding of oncology as a clinical and research discipline remains robust.