The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) is accepting applications for the 2013 Surgical Oncology Scholar-in-Residence program. The two-year fellowship in surgical oncology outcomes and health services research will begin July 1, 2013, and is available to a surgical resident who has completed two or three years of clinical training in the U.S. or Canada. The clinical scholar will work within the Cancer Programs area of the ACS Division of Research and Optimal Patient Care to conduct research using the CoC’s National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), which is designed to help improve the quality of care for cancer patients. The application deadline is August 15, 2012.
The primary objective of the Surgical Oncology Scholar-in-Residence program is to harness the power of the NCDB to devise studies that will enhance the quality of patient care delivered in the CoC’s 1,500-plus accredited cancer programs. The Scholar-in-Residence will have access to the NCDB analytic files, which contain a full complement of data items necessary to conduct a broad range of clinical studies.
In addition, the clinical scholar will be expected to support the growth and development of the NCDB Participant User Files by helping to foster communities of experts and establishing a core-user community that will serve as an effective reference point for future uses. It is anticipated that this work will result in several disease-specific presentations at major oncologic and surgical meetings in the U.S. and/or Canada, including those presented by the Society of Surgical Oncology and the American Surgical Association. These activities also should result in the publication of peer-reviewed articles in major oncologic and surgical journals.
A secondary objective of the Surgical Oncology Scholar-in-Residence program includes working with multidisciplinary panels on the development, validation, and assessment of quality measures in cancer care. The information gleaned through this process will be broadly disseminated among the CoC’s accredited cancer programs to benchmark performance and facilitate quality improvement initiatives at the local provider level. It is anticipated that the measures developed will build upon the current National Quality Forum-endorsed breast, colon, and rectal quality measures currently being assessed in CoC programs.
Details about the program can be found on the CoC website.
Program questions and completed applications with supporting documentation should be directed to Connie Bura, Administrative Director of Cancer Programs at the ACS, at cbura@facs.org.
