A survey of cancer curricula in Australian and New Zealand medical schoolsin 1997

Objective: To assess teaching about cancer in medical schools in Australia and New Zealand. Design and setting: Postal survey of all 12 Australian and New Zealand medi cal schools in 1997. Participants: The Dean (or a nominee) of each medical school and the repres entative of each university on the Oncology Education Committee (OEC) of th e Australian Cancer Society. Outcome measures: Curriculum content, clinical placements and forms of teac hing and assessment related to cancer; presence and composition of cancer c urriculum planning, and assessment groups. Results: 22 responses were received from 10 medical schools (from nine Dean s or nominees and 13 OEC representatives). Implementation of cancer teachin g and overall course structure varied considerably between schools. Nine of these 10 schools had a "cancer planning group", and four were using proble m-based learning. Only five schools could readily provide detailed curricul um maps. Courses covered most areas of basic and clinical sciences outlined in the ACS ideal curriculum; chemotherapy and palliative care were taught in all courses, but other subjects were covered less often (eg, clinical st aging, radiation oncology and pain management were taught in nine schools, critical evaluation of medical literature in seven, and economic evaluation in five). Teaching on cancer in clinical placements also varied considerab ly (eg, one school devoted no time to palliative care). Discussion: There has been some improvement in delivery of cancer education in medical schools since 1993, but considerable variation in teaching prac tice and implementation remains. Difficulty in determining details of cours e content led directly to difficulty in assessing the quality of teaching a bout cancer.