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The Radiation Oncology Residency Program at the University of Washington (UW) is a four-year program beginning in the PGY-2 year. The program, which accepts two to three residents annually, is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
Clinical rotations are organized in five blocks per year by disease site, which allows residents to learn a disease site in depth. Most rotations follow an apprenticeship model with a 1:1 attending/resident model. Rotations occur primarily at University of Washington Medical Center(UWMC) and FHCC South Lake Union with a few specialty rotations at Harborview Medical Center Gamma Knife Center and the Veteran’s Affair Hospital (VA). The FHCC Proton Therapy Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital are incorporated as part of the disease site rotations.
Residents take Monthly rotations during weekdays, for after hours resident take home pager calls. The on-call resident handles inpatient consults specific to radiation treatment and after-hours patient questions. There is always an attending on call with the resident to provide supervision. Additionally, the on-call resident will be on site at UWMC for any weekend treatments.
Clinical didactics are organized into blocks by disease site. Each block includes lectures, case sessions, journal clubs, and hands-on dosimetry/contouring sessions. The didactics are given by the faculty with expertise in the disease site. Our medical physics course is led by Dr. Eric Ford, who has published a curriculum utilized nationally. The radiation biology course is a combination of online and in person lectures. Residents are given protected time from clinical duties for morning lectures and from 8-11 am each Friday for a block of didactics.
Dr. Lia Halasz meets weekly with residents to discuss program needs and leadership topics. Dr. Kent Wallner organizes a monthly journal club, during which residents learn to critically evaluate the literature. Resident education is enhanced by case sessions with visiting professors and monthly Grand Rounds. We also include hands-on brachytherapy labs.
Residents focus on research during their PGY-4 year. They are assigned a research/career mentor in the second half of their PGY-2 year and submit research proposals to the program in the PGY-3 year. There is an option for Holman Pathway, though few residents will take this path and must demonstrate an interest in a career centered around research, as well as exceptional clinical milestone performance.
A broad range of research is supported. Examples of recent resident research projects include translational research regarding immunotherapy and radiation therapy, functional imaging in liver and lung cancer, health disparities for American Indian/Alaskan Native communities, quality improvement and safety culture, proton therapy outcomes, and physical compensators for Cobalt machines to approximate IMRT treatments in India. Click here to see our AY21-22 Chief Residents present their research year projects at our Radiation Oncology Grand Rounds