PII S0360-3016(02)02968-1 BIOLOGY CONTRIBUTION TOWARD A NATIONAL CONSENSUS: TEACHING RADIOBIOLOGY TO RADIATION ONCOLOGY RESIDENTS ELAINE M. ZEMAN,PH.D.,* JOSEPH R. DYNLACHT,PH.D., † BARRY S. ROSENSTEIN,PH.D., ‡ AND MARK W. DEWHIRST, D.V.M, PH.D., § ON BEHALF OF THE ASTRO JOINT WORKING GROUP ON RADIOBIOLOGY TEACHING *Department of Radiation Oncology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC; † Department of Radiation Oncology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN; ‡ Department of Radiation Oncology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine and New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY; § Department of Radiation Oncology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC Purpose: The ASTRO Joint Working Group on Radiobiology Teaching, a committee composed of members having affiliations with several national radiation oncology and biology-related societies and organizations, commissioned a survey designed to address issues of manpower, curriculum standardization, and instructor feedback as they relate to resident training in radiation biology. Methods and Materials: Radiation biology instructors at U.S. radiation oncology training programs were identified and asked to respond to a comprehensive electronic questionnaire dealing with instructor educational background, radiation biology course content, and sources of feedback with respect to curriculum planning and resident performance on standardized radiation biology examinations. Results: Eighty-five radiation biology instructors were identified, representing 73 radiation oncology residency training programs. A total of 52 analyzable responses to the questionnaire were received, corresponding to a response rate of 61.2%. Conclusion: There is a decreasing supply of instructors qualified to teach classic, and to some extent, clinical, radiobiology to radiation oncology residents. Additionally, those instructors with classic training in radiobiology are less likely to be comfortable teaching cancer molecular biology or other topics in cancer biology. Thus, a gap exists in teaching the whole complement of cancer and radiobiology curricula, particularly in those programs in which the sole responsibility for teaching falls to one faculty member (50% of training programs are in this category). On average, the percentage of total teaching time devoted to classic radiobiology (50%), clinical radiobiology (30%), and molecular and cancer biology (20%) is appropriate, relative to the current makeup of the board examination. Nevertheless large variability exists between training programs with respect to the total number of contact hours per complete radiobiology course (ranging from approximately 10 to >50 h). A number of lecture topics, particularly in clinical radiobiology, are covered by fewer than 60% of training programs. A sizeable minority of radiation biology instructors are dissatisfied with the feedback they receive with respect to both course content and the performance of their residents on standardized radiobiology examinations admin- istered by the American College of Radiology and/or the American Board of Radiology. © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. Radiation biology teaching, Radiation oncology education, Instructor survey, ASTRO Joint Working Group on Radiobiology Teaching. INTRODUCTION The kind of biology that practicing radiation oncologists need to know to better understand modern cancer treatment has changed dramatically in recent years, with the explosion of new knowledge as to the molecular underpinnings of cancer. Accordingly, radiation biology educators have be- gun to include so-called molecular oncology topics (defined here as the terminology, techniques, pertinent findings, and clinical implications/applications of the new molecular and Support for the conduct of this survey and the initial analysis of the results were provided by ASTRO. Presented in part at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Boston, MA, October 21, 2000; and at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Radiation Research Society, San Juan, PR, April 23, 2001. Reprint requests to: Elaine M. Zeman, Ph.D., Department of Radiation Oncology, Campus Box 7512, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7512. Tel: (919) 966-7713; Fax: (919) 966-7681; E-mail: zeman@radonc. unc.edu Acknowledgments—The authors thank the fellow members of the ASTRO Joint Working Group on Radiobiology Teaching for their valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions regarding this manuscript. Received Jan 22, 2002, and in revised form May 15, 2002. Accepted for publication May 24, 2002. Int. J. Radiation Oncology Biol. Phys., Vol. 54, No. 3, pp. 861– 872, 2002 Copyright © 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0360-3016/02/$–see front matter 861