by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | September 27, 2016
From the September 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
We’re also excited to be back in Boston. ASTRO loves Boston. I have every reason to expect we’re going to set records for attendance this year. We have a record number of abstracts, more than 350 oral abstract presentations, almost 2,000 posters, nearly 75 educational sessions and scientific panels and more than 200 exhibitors showing off the latest technology. We also will have eight e-contouring sessions. This is one of those skills you need as a radiation oncologist — taking information from a patient’s scan and creating a radiation treatment plan from it.
We’ve created a process for hands-on training. It’s not just note-taking. You do it, and you get it reviewed by experts in the room. We’re also doing a second year of a prostate brachytherapy workshop to allow people to get a very hands-on experience with phantoms. The workshop allows you to practice everything you need to do when you’re going to care for such a patient.
HCB News: What will radiation oncology look like 10 years from now?
DB: It’s hard to know what it’s going to look like. The way radiation interacts with matter and its ability to kill cancer cells is something that we’ve known works for more than 100 years, but it’s just within the past 30 years or so that we’ve come to understand how and why it works. In 10 years, we’ll know even more. We’ll combine that knowledge with certain drug therapies to make certain areas more sensitive or protected. In the same way that you want your surgeon to have the sharpest scalpel possible, you want your radiation therapist to have the sharpest tools possible. You need to make choices. Sometimes complicated is better, sometimes it’s not. With ASTRO’s participation in Choosing Wisely, we emphasized the importance of careful consideration when making treatment decisions.
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