Over the past decade a coordinated, multidisciplinary oncology education program for undergraduate medical students, physicians, nurses and allied health personnel in the Albany region has been in effect. Our continuing evaluation indicates that the program is both sound and effective but that expansion and augmentation of this basic program is necessary to fulfill some changes in our long term objectives. We plan to educate all undergraduate medical students and housestaff in both the printciples and practice of cancer control, defined as the reduction of cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality through an orderly sequence from research on interventions and their impact in defined populations to their broad, systematic applications. Nurses and allied health personnel will be educated in specific areas of cancer control. New, augmented or expanded areas in addition to the content of the current curriculum will include smoking cessation and prevention, diet, nutrition and cancer, biostatistics and cancer epidemiology, screening and early detection, clinical trials evaluation, surgical oncology, and radiation oncology. In order to educate the maximum number of students, great emphasis will be placed on including as much of this new focus in the required curriculum as possible. A wide range of educational technics will be used that will include both curricular and elective extra curricular activities. A strong emphasis on basing the educational efforts on research involvement and results will be maintained. The impact of this revised and expanded program will be evaluated through various methods: observations, analysis of examination performances, clinical evaluation, pre and post tests, student and faculty evaluations, attendance at educational exercises, practice of cancer control activities and observation of trainees who enter careers in oncology. In addition, studies on the behavior of faculty toward cancer patients will be expanded to include first housestaff, and then students. The entire program will be planned, supervised and evaluated by the Cancer Education Committee of the Albany Medical College.
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