Cancer Education in Poland Current Status and Sug

Authors: Joanna Wawryka Paulina Ziobro Maciej Tyszko

Publish Date: 2016/04/15

Volume: 32, Issue: 3, Pages: 669-675

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Abstract

In this article we want to describe the opportunities we experienced though involvement with the AACE and EACE to improve cancer education in poland from our points of view as fifthyear medicine students By participating in the annual meeting of the EACE that our university Wroclaw hosted and also the ESMIESO course on medical oncology for medical students we were able to improve our doctor patient skills and deepen our knowledge caring for cancer patients In our opinion in the obligatory medical curriculum in Poland the curricular offerings in oncology should be better coordinated and there is too little attention to the teaching of the so called “soft skills” for future doctors Over the course our studies we are taught a great deal about the biology diagnosis and symptomatology of cancer however we are not exposed very much to issues of communication between the doctor and the oncology patient or appropriate strategies to pass information about the diagnosis and prognosis Therefore we feel that it is important for the future for students to learn more about such topics Many do this in informal extracurricular ways as there is much interest to learn about such topics and we will discuss several useful tools In this review we would like to summarize the current state of oncology education in Poland and our hopes for improving the current state and to emphasize how inspiring it was for us to participate in an international cancer education meeting where we could discuss good ideas from all over the world and bring them home to PolandWe the authors are fifthyear medical students at the Wroclaw Medical University In just one year we will complete our undergraduate studies and begin to work at a hospital We were inspired to write this paper through our participation in the 2013 European Association for Cancer Education EACE hosted by our university and we left that meeting having discussed exciting ideas with colleagues from many countries We are dedicated to make improvements in the Polish educational system about the approach to cancer Taking into consideration the knowledge that we have acquired during our studies we would like to discuss the current status of cancer in Poland and oncology education in Poland for both medical students and doctors at the beginning of their careers In the course of our own education we have experienced some reforms of the curriculum which we will describe and we will give our opinions about future possible ways to improve oncology education awareness in our countryWe will first examine the state of cancer as a health problem in Poland We will discuss the epidemiology of cancer assess how serious a problem cancer is for our country and evaluate the actions taken and their influence on outcomes In Poland like other developed countries cancer morbidity is an important problem that is increasing among both men and women In 2012 152000 poles were diagnosed with cancer Poland has a population of around 38 million The most common cancers in men are lung prostate and colorectal cancer while in women the most common are breast colorectal and lung cancer 1 While the mean morbidity rate in Poland is lower than that in other European Union countries the mortality is in our opinion still too high and there is a steady increase in the number of new cases of cancer in Poland This increase is explained by population growth changes in age structure of the population with an increase in the population of age groups in which cancer morbidity is particularly high the persistence of unhealthy population behaviors smoking alcohol unhealthy diet and last but not least an unsatisfactory improvement of the early diagnosisThe national cancer registry at the oncology center in Warsaw is responsible for the compilation of statistics of cancer morbidity and mortality Since 1952 each new case of cancer must be reported from both public and nonpublic treatment centers Healthcare centers and all medical practitioners must complete a cancer report card with each new case diagnosed and the collected data is then sent monthly to 1 of 16 voivodeship cancer registries The data about mortality is compiled by the register office and the central statistical office from death certificates The compiled data is published in information bulletins The good news is that statistics published by the national cancer registry MarieCurie Institute show that the number of deaths caused by cancer is decreasing yet it is still not satisfactory 2 3The newest generation of young doctors at the beginning of their careers is the best hope for improvement of the standards for oncology treatment However the level of education is highly variable and this variability is the major reason we wrote this paperWe wish to next introduce the general structure of medical studies in Poland At a medicine faculty the course of medicine which took 6 years in the past was changed to 5 years in 2012 In a 6year course in the past the first 3 years consisted of preclinical courses and the last 3 years were clinical In the newer 5year course the preclinical part has been reduced to 2 years Classes such as biology biochemistry histology cytophysiology genetics pathomorphology and pathophysiology allow each student to learn the characteristics of a cancer as well as hypotheses about the origins but these courses are often not coordinated so a comprehensive picture of cancer may not be introduced Concrete theoretical knowledge is required to begin the clinical part of the curriculum Recently some of the universities in Poland eg Wroclaw have introduced a separate course in the preclinical part called propaedeutics of oncology which gives a more coordinated and comprehensive look at cancer At Wroclaw there are twenty hours of seminars about the epidemiology symptoms prophylaxis and treatment strategies for cancer This course takes place at the third year of the medical studies and one of our suggestions is to have each university take such a coordinated comprehensive approachIn the clinical years there is also a course on oncology at the sixth year in Wroclaw During 10 hours of lectures students deepen their theoretical knowledge but they also experience 50 hours of clinical training which allows them to meet oncology patients This is a wonderful way to experience applied knowledge in real situations Our second suggestion is for all universities to develop such experiential clinical experiences and for students to see role modeling and decision making by the various oncology specialists Students are taught different treatment strategies and learn about the obstacles that occur in treatment This capstone course concludes with a verification of the achieved knowledge level in the form of a final test exam 4 However even with these coordinated efforts the total load of such oncology courses is only 80 hours and this is only 335  of total course load during the studies

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