Evaluating a specialty-specific objective structured clinical examination and workplace-based assessment curriculum for radiation oncology postgraduate training: a prospective educational intervention study.

BACKGROUND

Competence in radiation oncology is still commonly expected to emerge through apprenticeship, although essential tasks such as target delineation, treatment-plan review, and multidisciplinary reasoning are not reliably sampled by end-of-rotation examinations alone.

METHODS

We conducted a single-center prospective educational intervention at a tertiary academic cancer center, using a historical-control comparison. 21 radiation oncology postgraduates completed the specialty-specific curriculum and were compared with 19 historical controls. The curriculum was built around 3 fixed disease modules: locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma without induction chemotherapy, middle/lower thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma managed with definitive or neoadjuvant radiotherapy, and FIGO 2018 IB3-IIIC1 cervical cancer treated with definitive chemoradiation. Each module combined contouring, structured plan review using FCB-CHOPS, MDT-style debriefing, and narrative feedback. Outcomes included OSCE, mini-CEX, multisource evaluation, FCB-CHOPS, and PHEEM.

RESULTS

The intervention cohort had a higher OSCE total score than historical controls (79.4 ± 6.8 vs. 76.2 ± 7.0, P = 0.021). The contouring station differed slightly between groups (P = 0.049), whereas the plan-evaluation station did not (P = 0.100). Mini-CEX overall score (P = 0.006), FCB-CHOPS (P = 0.008), and PHEEM total score (P = 0.020) all increased after the intervention, while no significant change was observed in the 360-degree overall score or the PHEEM social-support domain.

CONCLUSIONS

This curriculum was associated with modest, uneven gains in selected domains of postgraduate radiation oncology training. Its main educational value may lie in making contouring and plan review more explicit, observable, and discussable within routine clinical teaching.