Genomic oncology education: an urgent need, a new approach

Abstract

Genomic testing has entered oncology practice. With reduced cost and faster turnaround times, clinical applications for next-generation sequencing-based assays will only continue to increase. As such, there is an urgent need for health professional education to allow implementation of these new diagnostic tools. However, current medical school, residency, and fellowship training has had limited success in educating physicians in the fundamentals of single-gene testing, let alone genomic methods. In this review, we describe the novel approach the pathology community has taken in genomic education and the potential for application to oncology trainees.