Second AGITG Preceptorship in Colorectal Cancer
One of the many callings that Associate Professor Eva Segelov has is in mentoring the successors of her field. Following the success of the first AGITG Preceptorship in Colorectal Cancer held in August 2013 in Melbourne, A/Prof Segelov co-led the second two-day Preceptorship in CRC in Sydney in late July with a participant from the 2013 program.
Emerging from a Harvard Short Course in Medical Education which A/Prof Segelov completed several years ago came the idea of an AGITG Preceptorship. “Participants walk together through the evolution of CRC treatment to understand what and why we practice as we do today. The aim is for participants to meet three learning objectives and secondary aims are to become friendly with colleagues all over Australia and share resources and experiences, as well as to have extensive interaction with the preceptors,” A/Prof Segelov explained.
“The Preceptorship is aimed at medical and radiation oncology registrars as well as junior consultants and is restricted to 40 participants with five mentors who are key opinion leaders in colorectal cancer,” A/Prof Segelov added.
There is no cost to attend the two day Preceptorship which kicked off with a Plenary presentation by A/Prof Segelov on the clinical relevance of molecular characteristics of CRC. Participants gained experience in critically appraising research studies through research and delivering presentations on seminal papers in adjuvant therapy (day one) and seminal papers in metastatic CRC (day two).
The preceptors, including Prof Peter Gibbs, A/P Chris Karapetis, A/P Jeremy Shapiro, A/P Niall Tebbutt and A/P Nick Pavlakis, shared their knowledge with participants in “Quiz your preceptor” small break out groups.
Multidisciplinary cases were discussed by a panel consisting of the preceptors and a multidisciplinary team including Dr Kourosh Haghighi (Liver Surgeon), Professor Michael Solomon (Colorectal Surgeon), Dr Andrew Kneebone (Radiation Oncologist) and Dr Richard Maher (Interventional Radiologist).
“Ideally participants will come through the Preceptorship with a better ability to become involved in trials and manage patients as well as a greater understanding of where clinical trials fit — why high quality research is so important and why it is so important ask clinically meaningful questions,” said A/Prof Segelov.
75% of participants responded in the post Preceptorship survey that the learning experience was above and beyond their expectations. Many positive comments were received in the survey including “The Preceptorship encouraged active learning, with preparation which enabled more robust discussion, and hopefully better retention of information. I think the encouragement to read all the papers prior to the Preceptorship, and listening to the discussion is enlightening in terms of how the same results can be interpreted in different ways. This also made me aware of my own prejudices that I previously was unaware of when reading the literature, and that other people have different biases and prejudices.”
This year A/Prof Segelov was extremely fortunate that a 2013 participant, Yada Kanjanapan, agreed to assist in convening the Preceptorship. A/Prof Segelov sincerely thanks Yada for her huge effort and enthusiasm, including many long late night phone calls and literally hundreds of emails.
“This interactive small group program is an effective learning model for early-career and training oncologists to gain an understanding of the evolution of colorectal cancer management. It is satisfying to see it has been well received by both participants and Preceptors; and that the electronic resource created is continually used by participants!” said Yada Kanjanapan.
Congratulations go to Yada for being selected to present an oral presentation at the COSA 2014 Annual Scientific Meeting. Yada’s presentation “Learning through clinical trials: 2013 and 2014 Preceptorship in Colorectal Cancer (CRC) – an initiative of the Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group (AGITG)” will be presented on Wednesday December 3rd in the Best of the Best Orals Education session starting at 11am.
“It has been exciting and gratifying to see how successful this novel approach to understanding treatment of colorectal cancer through the evolution of clinical trials has been. I hope we are able to obtain support to keep running these on an annual basis and also to run a similar Preceptorship for Upper GI cancer,” concluded A/Prof Segelov.
The 2013 and 2014 AGITG Preceptorships in CRC have been supported by educational sponsorships from Roche Products Pty Limited.
