Artikel: Are future medical oncologists sufficiently trained to communicate about palliative care? The medical oncology curriculum in Flanders, Belgium

Palliative care is considered an integral part of oncology and communicating this with patients

is an unavoidable task for oncologists. This contribution investigated to what extent communication skills for

communicating palliative care with patients are trained in the formal academic training program in medical oncology

in Flanders, Belgium. The programme is based on the recommendations for a Global Core Curriculum in Medical

Oncology, developed by The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) together with the European Society

for Medical Oncology (ESMO).

Methods

For this qualitative study, data were collected using document analysis from the ESMO/ASCO

recommendations and the documents of the Flanders’ medical oncology programme complemented with

interviews with Flemish medical oncology trainees.

Results

Few recommendations for training communication skills to communicate about palliative care were

found in the ASMO/ASCO recommendations and even less in the Flanders’ programme documents. Trainees

are mainly exposed to palliative care communication during the clinical practice of their training. Only very few

lectures or seminars are devoted to palliative care and even less on communication about palliative care. They

reported several barriers to communicate about palliative care.

Conclusions

This study revealed promising developments for the training of Flemish medical oncologists to

discuss palliative care. However, there is still a need for more theoretical training on palliative care complemented

with communication skills trainings. Communication training in general needs to be fully integrated as a core skill

within the medical curriculum at large and should be promoted as lifelong learning and competency development.