Introduction and background

Dr. Jan Stjernswärd, chief of the former Cancer and Palliative Care Unit from WHO Headquarters in Geneva, considered the textbook Essential Oncology for Health Professionals (1994) applicable in different cultures, but he wanted to know whether cancer educators around the world shared his opinion. He requested the WHO-Collaborating Centre for Cancer Education to perform a cross cultural evaluation of the book in terms of validity and applicability in different cultures.

Relation education - general practice

Essential Oncology for Health Professionals is intended to match with the international developments in medical education. These developments are the result of a growing insight that a better relation is needed between medical education and preparation for general practice. This insight is enhanced by the following developments.

• General practitioners criticising medical schools concerning their training in knowledge and skills needed in general practice.
• Ministries of health and insurance companies becoming more and more critical concerning health care, with a major concern of financial implications.
• The general public and patient associations becoming more and more critical and assertive in health care.
• Medical students becoming more and more critical concerning teaching programmes.

Doctors who see cancer patients first

The vast majority of patients who have a (possible) malignant disease are first seen by doctors not-specialized in oncology. These medical doctors (general practitioners and/or general specialists) are an important link in reaching better results in cancer care and prognosis either through early recognition and an adequate pattern of referral, or through adequate primary treatment of cancer patients with early stage cancers.

It should be realized that medical schools train future doctors of whom the vast majority will specialize either to become a General Practitioner or a Specialist in a non-oncology discipline. Whatever medical carrier is chosen, doctors will always see patients who (may) have cancer. The main topics in (under)graduate cancer education should therefore primarily aim at the needs in general health care of doctors not-specialized in oncology.

Problems in cancer education

The multidisciplinary nature of oncology is reflected in cancer education. It has been demonstrated that this multidisciplinary nature leads in undergraduate education to a fragmented offer of knowledge in different curriculum years, unnecessary duplications and unnoticed omissions, and is frequently complicated by the use of an ambiguous terminology. This results in a confusing exposure of knowledge to students. This website

Development of the book

Essential Oncology for Health Professionals tries to avoid the above mentioned problems. The book is the tangible result of a multidisciplinary cancer education project at Groningen University Faculty of Medical Sciences and Groningen University Hospital (1987 - 1991). All faculty members involved in cancer education have cooperated, as has the Centre for Medical Education Research and Development. By means of a coordinated multidisciplinary approach, and by avoiding ambiguity through the use of a uniform terminology, the different aspects of the many malignant diseases could be reduced to a more general subject matter, relevant for general practice. Nearly 300 medical students, interns, residents, general physicians and general practitioners have been involved in evaluation procedures and field-testing during the development of the book. In 1992 a first edition was published in Dutch by Van Gorcum, Assen, the Netherlands: Oncologie voor de Medicus Practicus. A translation into the English language followed in 1994: Essential Oncology for Health Professionals (also published by Van Gorcum). Publications

Cancer care in general practice

The book is aimed as a reference book for medical doctors without a specific training in oncology. The attention throughout the book is focussed on crucial questions such as:

• when to suspect a malignant disease?
• what can I see?
• how do I have to examine the patient?
• which investigations are required?
• what are the do's and the don'ts?
• what should be my pattern of referral? how to take care of the patient at home?

Health Professionals

Much to the surprise of the authors, it turned out that the Dutch book was also used by other health professionals working in cancer care. Where the Dutch title only refers to the medical profession, the title of the English version takes into account the broadening of the target group.