2353 - Education Subcommittees: A Novel Approach to Evolution of a Radiation Oncology Residency Program

Purpose/Objective(s):

In most radiation oncology residency programs, responsibility for educational initiatives primarily falls to the program director, assistant program director, and program coordinator. Beyond required participation on the Clinical Competency Committee and Program Evaluation Committee, additional faculty involvement is not mandated by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. This structure may burden program leadership and limit broader faculty engagement in resident education. We describe a novel subcommittee-based approach to enhance faculty participation and distribute responsibility for residency program development.

Materials/Methods:

During the 2025–2026 academic year, five education-based departmental subcommittees were created to address specific domains of the residency program: recruitment, medical student engagement, program growth, curriculum, and learning environment optimization. Each committee was co-chaired by the residency program director and program coordinator and included 2–3 additional faculty members and a resident physician. Faculty participation and committee driven initiatives were tracked descriptively.

Results:

Thirteen of 15 departmental faculty participated in at least one committee. The recruitment subcommittee hosted two virtual applicant events, increased faculty participation in application review, and streamlined the interview day based on resident and applicant feedback. The medical student engagement subcommittee developed social media content, delivered medical student lectures, and hosted virtual and in-person open houses. The program growth subcommittee collaborated with institutional leadership to establish a new advanced radiation oncology fellowship. The curriculum subcommittee optimized clinical rotations, identified disease site leads for didactic planning, centralized educational materials, implemented a revised statistics curriculum, and developed workflows with nuclear medicine to meet new Authorized User requirements. The learning environment optimization subcommittee provided faculty development updates at monthly meetings, set up faculty mentorship training, and distributed anonymous surveys to residents, alumni, and faculty to identify areas for improvement.

Conclusion:

Implementation of a subcommittee-based educational structure enhanced faculty and resident engagement in residency program development and facilitated targeted improvements across multiple domains of a radiation oncology residency program. This model offers a scalable approach for shared educational leadership and faculty development within graduate medical education.