Getting into oncology requires a lot of education and training. How does one deal with the success and stress of such a journey? In Part One of this ASCO Education Podcast, moderator Dr. Aakash Desai – fellow at the Mayo Clinic along with guests Dr Madison Conces – Hem/Onc Fellow at Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Lori J. Rosenstein, Hematology and Oncology fellowship program director at Gundersen Health System and Dr. Deepa Rangachari, fellowship program director explore the past, present and future of Oncology Training. They discuss their motivation of pursuing oncology (1:55), the rewards (5:51) and the stresses (8:44) of fellowship, coping with the loss of a patient (12:52) along with methods to keep up with advances in the field (19:50). TRANSCRIPT Dr. Lori Rosenstein: What I learned in fellowship is completely different than what I know now. And I passed the Boards, I did well on the Boards, I stressed about them, but the Boards do not define who you are as a cancer doctor; they are just a step along the way. And so, really, I am much happier if a fellow has that thought process and that self-reflection and knowledge of what they do and do not know; they're going to be amazing when they're done. Dr. Aakash Desai: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Education podcast. My name is Aakash Desai, and I'm a Hematology/Oncology fellow at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. I will moderate this episode focusing on how Oncology training has changed in the last couple of decades. Do you think today's fellows have it easier with the electronic medical records, or is it rather harder with that? Given the much bigger pool of treatments to choose from and the constant stream of information, is it more difficult for Oncology fellows in this day and age? On a personal level, what challenges persist? How might we reimagine Oncology training in the future? To discuss all these questions and more, I'm joined by current Oncology fellow Dr. Madison Conces from Cleveland Clinic and two former fellows; Dr. Lori Rosenstein, a Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program Director at Gundersen Health Systems in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Dr. Deepa Rangachari, a Medical Oncologist, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director of Hematology/Oncology Graduate Medical Education at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. As we are all colleagues, I'm going to refer to everyone by their first names, if that is okay. And so, I'm going to pose my first question to Madison. Question is, what motivated you to get into Medicine and specialize in Oncology? And then, I will have Lori and Deepa answer the same. Dr. Madison Conces: Thank you, Aakash, for having me join this conversation today. So, I'll kind of answer the Medicine and Hematology/Oncology portion at the same time. I was in college when I actually was shadowing Dr. Pat Loehrer at IU over the summer, and I worked in the lab while also doing clinic with him one day a week. And I think being able to see the science and working to improve patient care while also witnessing the patient interactions, and the relationships, and the trust between the physician and the patient, is something I really admired, and that really drew me. So, I think that's kind of when it first sparked. And then, just during residency in medical school, my recurrent interactions with Oncology patients is what kind of definitively made me go that route. Dr. Aakash Desai: Lori? Dr. Lori Rosenstein: So, I was a little bit slow to figure out what I wanted; I thought Neurology or Internal Medicine, and then I had no plans after that, and I really debated a long time. You know, ultimately, now that I'm a Hematologist-- and this totally makes sense with my personality and everything else, what I love about Hematology is the mystery and the detective work that happens. It also happens in Neurology. That's what I liked was figuring out where the lesion was based on your exam. But in Hematology, we figure out where the lesion is, and