Strategies for maintaining oncology curriculum time amid pressures to cut classroom hours

A decade of experience with the oncology course offered within the second year pathophysiology curriculum at the Washington University School of Medicine is reviewed. The number of classroom hours allotted to this course has steadily decreased from 28 to 6 hours. Causes of this downward trend include the introduction of new subject matter into the curriculum and the desire for more independent study time. Strategies for maintaining or increasing the number of lecture hours are discussed. Videotaping the principles of surgical, medical, and radiation oncology enables the coursemaster to return the classroom emphasis to the patient as illustration.