Changing the landscape of European School of Oncology–European Society for Medical Oncology masterclasses in clinical oncology during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to assess the participants’ evaluation of the European School of Oncology–European Society for Medical Oncology virtual masterclasses in clinical oncology (MCOs) organized during the pandemic in 2021. Materials & methods: The participants answered an online evaluation questionnaire at the end of each MCO to evaluate the content and organization of the MCO. Results: The clinical session and case presentation scores ranged between 4.6 and 4.8 over 5. The participants strongly agreed that the MCOs offered updates to improve their knowledge and practice in 68–83% and 52–76%, respectively; 74–90% of the participants considered the quality of the meetings to be excellent. Conclusion: The participants were satisfied with the virtual MCOs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual MCO may be an acceptable alternative educational modality in specific circumstances.

Plain language summary

In 2002, the European School of Oncology (ESO) established masterclasses in clinical oncology (MCOs) and provided 41 in-person courses over the past two decades. As the COVID-19 pandemic forced travel restrictions and social distancing, the ESO and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) adapted the traditional MCOs to create virtual MCOs presented on e-ESO, an ESO e-learning platform. To date, five virtual MCOs have been organized for oncologists from western Europe, Latin America, Arab countries and southern Europe, the Baltic and Eurasia, eastern Europe and the Balkans. This study aimed to assess the participants’ evaluation of the ESO-ESMO virtual MCOs organized during the pandemic in 2021 and to compare the participants’ evaluation with that of previous in-person MCOs conducted between 2002 and 2019.

Keywords::

• COVID-19
• education
• in-person
• oncology
• teaching
• virtual

Supplementary data

To view the supplementary data that accompany this paper please visit the journal website at: www.futuremedicine.com/doi/suppl/10.2217/fon-2021-1477

Author contributions

Conceptualization: N Pavlidis; writing – original draft: E Rassy and N Pavlidis; writing – review and editing: all authors; final approval: all authors.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank C Hall, A Ciocchini, D Knupfer and F Marangoni from the European School of Oncology offices for their valuable support. They would also like to thank the participants in the European School of Oncology–European Society for Medical Oncology masterclasses in clinical oncology for answering the surveys.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that the European School of Oncology ethics board approved the survey and that they have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.