How would you describe the culture of your residency?
The mission of our residency program is to be the leaders in radiation oncology medical education and provide the best training experience possible. We invest in training to retain residents on our faculty and prepare graduates for success in academia or community practice. We do that by fostering excellence in our residents with a balance of high expectations with a supportive learning environment. We have a culture that is based on mutual respect for everyone on our team and the Cleveland Clinic core values of quality and safety, empathy, teamwork, integrity, inclusion and innovation.
How has your program supported resident wellness?
We take the health and wellness of our residents seriously and our mindful of the rampant rise in burnout amongst medical professionals. To that end, we ensure that our residents are well within (and typically well below) residency work hour restrictions, a culture of teamwork and being able to ask for help, and incorporating fun social activities for our residents during the year, including happy hours, dinners, and fun activities such as Top Golf, Axe throwing, Escape rooms, and trips to the beach.
How has your program supported diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) either at your institution or in the surrounding community?
DEI is something that our program has always supported and taken seriously. Many of our faculty have mentored students from under-represented groups in medicine (URIM) at the high school, college, and medical school level. We offer a scholarship fund to help URIM students do away rotations in our department. We actively recruit residents and faculty based on their holistic application and seek people who will add to our culture and community. Lastly, representation certainly matters, and the department and institution are both making strides in increasing diversity and inclusion in leadership roles.
What are unique features of your program that you would like to highlight?
We have such an incredible community that is smart, conscientious, kind, and supportive. Our residents are a close-knit group and because of that we have an amazing alumni network across the country. We also offer special programming in leadership development, the business of medicine and humanities in oncology that are special and unique to our program.
Is there any advice that you would like to share with the LMSA community?
The care of our patients depends on having intelligent, kind and caring physicians who are conscientious and advocate for the best possible outcomes. Representation matters and we have too few radiation oncologists from the LMSA community to help serve our LMSA community. We hope that you will consider our training program to help build our LMSA radiation oncology community and help advocate and improve the outcomes of all of our patients. Thanks for your consideration.
Contact:
Email: campbea7@ccf.org
Name: Amanda Campbell, Residency Program Coordinator