What Attributes Matter Most in Physicians? Exploratory Findings from a Single-Centre Survey of Stakeholder Priorities in Cancer Care at a Canadian Academic Cancer Centre.

BACKGROUND: Limited research exists regarding how healthcare stakeholders prioritize the importance of differing physician attributes in oncologists. Identifying these priorities can help ensure that Canadian cancer care continues to meet the needs of its patients. In our previous research, compassion and empathy were identified as important physician attributes, with answers like knowledge, professionalism or communication less common. We hypothesized that respondents may have been assuming other, underlying qualities in their oncologists when they prioritized "compassion" and "empathy". To test this, the current study asks respondents to rank important physician attributes. METHODS: With ethics approval, we asked healthcare stakeholders (physicians, nurses, patients, caregivers, medical students, and allied healthcare providers) to rank the eight most popular qualities or attributes. We identified differences between which characteristics each group valued most in physicians. RESULTS: 375 respondents participated in the survey. "Knowledge" and "competence" were the most popular answers in the current study among all groups except medical students. CONCLUSION: Previously, we identified compassion as a highly valued attribute; however, this survey suggests that this may be with the assumption that a physician is knowledgeable and competent. Future research will use semi-structured interviews to investigate respondents' rationales for making their choices and help interpret our findings in this study.

Evolution of Systemic Treatment Uptake and Survival in Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.

BACKGROUND: Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) commonly presents at advanced stage. We previously reported systemic treatment uptake in stage IV NSCLC climbing from 55% (2009-2012) to 62% (2015-2017). Since then, first-line immunotherapy and 2nd/3rd generation tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) have emerged as standards of care. We explored whether treatment rates continued to rise and studied outcomes. METHODS: We reviewed all cases of de novo stage IIIB/IIIC/IV NSCLC seen in out-patient medical oncology consultation at our institution between 2009-2012 (cohort A), 2015-2017 (cohort B), and June-December 2018 (cohort C). We compared rates of systemic treatment, molecular testing, targeted therapy, and immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) use. We compared survival in the overall, treated/untreated, younger and elderly population in cohort A vs. cohort B + C (=cohort D). RESULTS: Cohorts A, B, and C included 528, 463, and 93 patients, respectively. Overall, 66% received any systemic therapy in cohort C, compared to 62% in cohort B and 55% in cohort A. Across three time periods, first-line chemotherapy rates fell (93, 76, 46%) while rates of first-line targeted therapy (5, 16, 15%) and ICI (0, 2, 36%) rose. Among molecular subtypes, first-line targeted treatment in EGFR-positive patients (63, 94, 100%) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive patients (0, 91, 100%) rose. Survival improved in all subgroups in cohort D vs. cohort A, except for patients ≥ 70 years and the untreated population. CONCLUSIONS: Systemic treatment rose across three time periods, reflecting the introduction of rapid diagnostic pathways, reflex molecular testing, ICI, and targeted therapies. Survival outcomes of advanced NSCLC patients have significantly improved.