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Cancer Care Continuum Research and Educational Innovation: Are Academic Internists Keeping up with Population Trends?

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Abstract

Academic internists play a unique role in conducting innovative research, developing educational curricula, and influencing policy. As the population of patients living with and beyond cancer is expected to reach 22 million by 2030, it is essential for academic internists to lead innovative research in clinical care and medical education across the cancer care continuum. We characterized cancer-related topics presented at the 2015–2019 annual meetings of the Society of General Internal Medicine, a national organization of over 3,000 academic general internists. We analyzed all scientific (n = 3,437), Innovation in Medical Education (n = 756), and Innovation in Clinical Practice (n = 664) abstracts for content across the cancer continuum: prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and palliative/end-of-life care (P/EOL). Of 3,437 scientific abstracts, 304 (8.8%) related to cancer. Prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and P/EOL were addressed in 52 (17.1%), 145 (47.7%), 18 (5.9%), 57 (18.8%), 12 (4.0%), and 29 (9.5%) of scientific abstracts, respectively. Some addressed multiple phases, and 6 were classified as “other.” Breast (mean = 18.2, SD = 4.66), colorectal (mean = 12.8, SD = 3.11), and lung (mean = 8.2, SD = 2.29) cancers were most presented in scientific abstracts per year. Five (0.66%) of the 756 Innovation in Medical Education abstracts and 41 (6.2%) of the 665 Innovation in Clinical Practice abstracts addressed cancer. Similarly, they primarily focused on screening and prevention. To lead innovation in clinical care, education, and policy across the cancer continuum and prepare the future workforce, academic internists should expand their focus to later phases, particularly survivorship and P/EOL.

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Data Availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the SGIM support staff for their help obtaining programs and media from previous SGIM conferences.

Funding

We received no funding to conduct this study; the Johns Hopkins Primary Care Leadership Track paid for SGIM annual meeting abstract submission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Danielle B. Amundsen & Youngjee Choi

  2. Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Larissa Nekhlyudov

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  1. Danielle B. Amundsen
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  2. Youngjee Choi
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  3. Larissa Nekhlyudov
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Larissa Nekhlyudov; methodology: Danielle Amundsen, Youngjee Choi; formal analysis and investigation: Danielle Amundsen, Youngjee Choi; writing — original draft preparation: Danielle Amundsen; writing — review and editing: Danielle Amundsen, Youngjee Choi, Larissa Nekhlyudov; funding acquisition: not applicable; resources: not applicable; supervision: Larissa Nekhlyudov.

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Correspondence to Youngjee Choi.

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Dr. Choi has received salary support from a Merck Foundation Grant. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

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Amundsen, D.B., Choi, Y. & Nekhlyudov, L. Cancer Care Continuum Research and Educational Innovation: Are Academic Internists Keeping up with Population Trends?. J Canc Educ 38, 28–33 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-021-02073-4

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