Assessment of Fellowship Didactic Curricula in Hematology/Oncology: Cross-Sectional Findings From the PODCAST-HOF Trial

Ronak H Mistry^{1

1}, Karine Tawagi², Daniel J Hausrath³, Samantha A Armstrong⁴, Inas A Abuali⁵, Ankoor N Biswas⁶, Srijan Valasapalli⁷, Pranali S Pachika⁸, Moriah K Forster⁹, Ericson Stoen¹⁰, Yurhee Lee¹¹, Giuliana G Berardi¹², Jonathan L Berry¹³, Ahmad M Nassar¹⁴, Daniel Egert¹⁵, Kayla W Miranda¹⁶, Lauren S Mendelson¹⁷, Agrima Mian¹⁸, Kyle M Kidwell¹⁹, Madeline C Fitzpatrick²⁰, Maya Abdallah²¹, Megan Melody²², Jessica M Stempel²³, Victoria Chung²⁴, Sean M Taasan²⁴, Dillon C Cockrell²⁵, Fadi Taza²⁶, Nathaniel R Wilson¹⁴, Aleena S Itani²⁷, Shivang U Danak²⁸, Matthew D Bloom²⁹, Vivek G Patel³

Affiliations

¹ University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. ronak.mistry@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.
² University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
³ Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁴ Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
⁵ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
⁷ Carle Health, Urbana, IL, USA.
⁸ University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA.
⁹ Tennessee Oncology, Murfreesboro, TN, USA.
¹⁰ Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
¹¹ Ridley-Tree Cancer Center, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
¹² Fox Chase Cancer Center/Temple Health, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁴ Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
¹⁵ Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, PA, USA.
¹⁶ Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹⁷ University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
¹⁸ Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
¹⁹ Piedmont Cancer Institute, Atlanta, GA, USA.
²⁰ Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
²¹ Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
²² Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, FL, USA.
²³ Oregon Health & Science University, Knight Cancer Institute, OR, Portland, USA.
²⁴ UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
²⁵ Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
²⁶ Community Hospital Oncology Physicians, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
²⁷ Texas Oncology, Flower Mound, TX, USA.
²⁸ Chesapeake Oncology-Hematology Associates, Annapolis, MD, USA.
²⁹ Tampa General Hospital Cancer Center of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.

PMID: 41644935
DOI: 10.1007/s13187-025-02805-w

Assessment of Fellowship Didactic Curricula in Hematology/Oncology: Cross-Sectional Findings From the PODCAST-HOF Trial

Ronak H Mistry et al. J Cancer Educ. 2026.

. 2026 Feb 6.

doi: 10.1007/s13187-025-02805-w. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. ronak.mistry@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.
² University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
³ Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.
⁴ Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
⁵ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
⁷ Carle Health, Urbana, IL, USA.
⁸ University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA.
⁹ Tennessee Oncology, Murfreesboro, TN, USA.
¹⁰ Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, USA.
¹¹ Ridley-Tree Cancer Center, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
¹² Fox Chase Cancer Center/Temple Health, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
¹³ Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
¹⁴ Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
¹⁵ Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, PA, USA.
¹⁶ Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹⁷ University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
¹⁸ Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA.
¹⁹ Piedmont Cancer Institute, Atlanta, GA, USA.
²⁰ Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
²¹ Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.
²² Tampa General Hospital, Tampa, FL, USA.
²³ Oregon Health & Science University, Knight Cancer Institute, OR, Portland, USA.
²⁴ UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
²⁵ Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA.
²⁶ Community Hospital Oncology Physicians, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
²⁷ Texas Oncology, Flower Mound, TX, USA.
²⁸ Chesapeake Oncology-Hematology Associates, Annapolis, MD, USA.
²⁹ Tampa General Hospital Cancer Center of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA.

PMID: 41644935
DOI: 10.1007/s13187-025-02805-w

Abstract

Didactic lectures play an important role in hematology/oncology fellowship education. How each program structures their curricula is determined independently. To improve the trainee experience, identifying best practices is essential, but limited data about program structure exist. This marks the first cross-sectional analysis of hematology/oncology fellowship didactic curricula from a heterogenous group of programs to-date. Twenty-eight US Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited hematology/oncology fellowship programs were included. Local principal investigators completed a 21-question survey containing a series of multiple-choice and open-ended questions to understand participating programs' educational curricula and structure. Responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics for multiple-choice questions and thematic analysis for open-ended questions. All participating programs completed the background assessment (100% response rate), representing a heterogenous group of academic and community programs across the continental US. There was a median of 3 days of lectures (range 1-5 days per week), with slideshow presentations as the primary mode of content delivery (100%). Disease-specific faculty delivered the majority of content for malignant hematology and oncology (n = 26, 93%) and classical hematology (n = 18, 64%) at most programs. Journal club was included in 24 programs (86%), however only four programs invited biostatisticians (17%) and only 8 programs (28%) included introductory biostatistics lectures. The majority of programs also encouraged supplemental resource use. These data suggest that there remains heterogeneity with regards to the structure of didactic curricula in hematology/oncology fellowship programs. Future efforts to evaluate how these variations impact fellow education should be undertaken to identify best practices.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics Approval: This study and protocol were reviewed by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Institutional Review Board and was deemed exempt. Competing interests: The authors have no financial conflicts of interest to disclose. The authors are the hosts of the podcast in discussion in this manuscript.

References

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Assessment of Fellowship Didactic Curricula in Hematology/Oncology: Cross-Sectional Findings From the PODCAST-HOF Trial

Affiliations

Assessment of Fellowship Didactic Curricula in Hematology/Oncology: Cross-Sectional Findings From the PODCAST-HOF Trial

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

LinkOut - more resources

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