2298 - Perceptions and Attitudes of Oncology Trainees Toward Professional Development through a Multidisciplinary Leadership Journal Club
Presenter(s)
M. T. Aboujaoude1, J. J. Lee2, M. Druta3, J. M. Frakes4, S. A. Rosenberg5, J. Mullinax6, S. Dineen7, and S. Hoffe4; 1University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, FL, United States, 2University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, FL, 3Moffitt CAncer Center, Tampa, FL, 4H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Department of Radiation Oncology, Tampa, FL, 5Department of Radiation Oncology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, FL, 6H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Department of Sarcoma, Tampa, FL, 7Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL
Purpose/Objective(s): Physician leadership skills are essential but are underrepresented in graduate medical education. A multidisciplinary leadership journal club (MLJC) was introduced at one institution to support leadership development. This study evaluates trainees’ perceptions, attitudes, and perceived value of leadership education and the MLJC in particular to inform future program development
Materials/Methods: An anonymous, IRB-exempt survey was offered to radiation oncology (RO), medical oncology (MO), and surgical oncology (SO) trainees at a single institution to assess their perceptions of leadership education and the MLJC conducted between 2020-2024. Fisher’s exact test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to compare categorical and Likert-scale responses across specialties, with p <0.05 considered significant.
Results: A total of 24 oncology trainees completed the survey, including 12/12 (100%) RO, 8/33 (24.2%) MO, and 4/10 (40%) SO trainees. Among the MLJC participants, 91.7% were RO trainees compared with 37.5% MO trainees, with no responding SO trainees attending. Among attendees, 100% of RO trainees attended 4 sessions, while MO trainees primarily attended once. Prior formal leadership training was reported by 25% of RO and SO trainees. The most common barriers to leadership journal club attendance were scheduling conflicts (62.5%), clinical workload (58.3%), and time constraints (54.2%), whereas fewer trainees reported lack of relevance (20.8%). Training program was significantly associated with desire to continue the leadership journal club (p=0.001). Favorability towards continuation was highest among RO trainees (91.7%) compared with MO (42.9%) and SO (0%). No significant differences were observed across specialties in preferred journal club format (p=0.27), session frequency (p=0.30), or preparation style (p=0.09). Training program was significantly associated with all Likert-scale domains evaluating leadership training adequacy, perceived value, relevance to practice, importance of leadership development, improvement in leadership skills, and overall educational value of the journal club (all p=0.013), with RO differing from MO and SO in the majority of domains.
Conclusion: RO trainees demonstrated significantly higher engagement and perceived value in multidisciplinary leadership training compared to SO and MO. These findings will be evaluated at the institutional level to determine how to better align content with training specialty. While systemic barriers persist across all specialties, disparities in leadership training engagement warrant further study.