Conventional hematology/oncology fellowship training is designed to foster careers in academic practice through intensive exposure to clinical and laboratory research. Even so, a notable proportion of graduating fellows opt to pursue a clinically focused career outside the realm of academic medicine. Given the corresponding shortage of oncologists in nonurban and rural settings, improving the representation of hematologists/oncologists in the community setting is a national priority.

We reviewed current national challenges and changing models of cancer care delivery in the context of the traditional academic training model along with trends in practice patterns for recent hematology/oncology graduates. We defined the Academic-Community hybrid (ACH) and how it supports the evolution in contemporary models of cancer care. We then drew on the authors’ experiences to formulate an innovative goal-concordant training paradigm for fellows seeking careers in the ACH model.

The ACH hematology/oncology fellowship training pathway emphasizes and optimizes professional development domains including clinical care, patient safety and quality improvement, business and operations, cancer care equity and community access, healthy policy and alignment with professional organizations, and medical education.

This novel hematology/oncology training model provides a paradigm for optimizing preparedness for practice in an increasingly complex cancer care delivery environment while addressing workforce shortages and health disparities.

Conception and design: Daniel A Roberts, Jennifer Faig, Kelly Bodio-Downey, Jason Shpilsky, Kathleen Leahy, Jonathan Wischhusen, Utkarsh Acharya, Reed Drews, David Dougherty, Deepa Rangachari

Administrative support: David Dougherty

Provision of study materials or patients: Reed Drews

Collection and assembly of data: Daniel A Roberts, Jason Shpilsky, Christopher Lathan

Data analysis and interpretation: Daniel A Roberts, Jason Shpilsky, Sara Giordano, Reed Drews, David Dougherty

Manuscript writing: All authors

Final approval of manuscript: All authors

Accountable for all aspects of the work: All authors

AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Training Hematologists/Oncologists for the Academic-Community Hybrid: Creating a Fellowship Framework for the Future

The following represents disclosure information provided by authors of this manuscript. All relationships are considered compensated unless otherwise noted. Relationships are self-held unless noted. I = Immediate Family Member, Inst = My Institution. Relationships may not relate to the subject matter of this manuscript. For more information about ASCO's conflict of interest policy, please refer to www.asco.org/rwc or ascopubs.org/op/authors/author-center.

Open Payments is a public database containing information reported by companies about payments made to US-licensed physicians (Open Payments).

Jennifer Faig

Employment: CVS Health, Cardinal Health

Stock and Other Ownership Interests: CVS Health, Cardinal Health

Sara Giordano

Consulting or Advisory Role: Novartis

Utkarsh Acharya

Honoraria: Prometheus

Christopher Lathan

Consulting or Advisory Role: Lilly, Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation, Lilly, Pfizer, Grail, Johnson and Johnson

Deepa Rangachari

Honoraria: AstraZeneca

Consulting or Advisory Role: Advance Medical, DynaMed, Teladoc

Research Funding: Bristol Myers Squibb (Inst), Novocure (Inst), AbbVie/Stemcentrx (Inst)

Open Payments Link: https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/physician/941245

No other potential conflicts of interest were reported.