Artful Oncology: A Comprehensive Psychosocial Oncology Curriculum for Hematology/Oncology Fellows

Forty-six percent of patients with cancer experience significant psychosocial distress, a factor linked to higher morbidity, mortality, and costs of care. Oncologists also face high psychosocial distress, particularly during fellowship training. Herein, we describe a novel curriculum aimed at improving the professional well-being, communication skills (CS), and attitudes toward psychosocial patient care among hematology/oncology (H/O) fellows.

Artful Oncology is an innovative, multimodal, longitudinal curriculum for H/O fellows consisting of four pillars: (1) monthly psychosocial oncology didactics; (2) bimonthly narrative medicine seminars; (3) quarterly CS training simulations; and (4) monthly cancer survivorship support group facilitation. This curriculum was introduced with the inaugural H/O fellowship class in 2021 with formal assessments added in 2022-2023 (total six fellows). Outcomes were measured through self-assessed CS, scored feedback for each didactic, annual Physician Belief Scale (PBS) surveys, quarterly Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL)-Health, and abbreviated Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) surveys.

Fellows rated didactics as being relevant to their work, prepared to implement the skills learned into clinical practice, and would recommend these sessions to others (average 4.59, 4.48, and 4.67 of 5-point Likert scale, respectively). PBS scores numerically improved from 2022 to 2023 (78 to 68.8 of 160). MBI and ProQOL Health scores were largely unchanged (<2 point difference on average). Self-assessed CS averaged across rising fellows increased from 4.38 to 7.44 of 10 between 2022 and 2023.

Self-assessed CS and physician attitudes regarding psychosocial care numerically improved after participation in the Artful Oncology curriculum. Didactic sessions were rated as highly relevant, actionable, and recommended by H/O fellows. Study of this curriculum over a longer timeframe with larger numbers of fellows is ongoing to better evaluate effects.