Designing, Implementing, and Evaluating of Teaching Scholarship in Virtual Multidisciplinary Tumor Board

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Background Cancer management has become increasingly challenging due to the emergence of personalized approach which requires careful assessment, multidisciplinary efforts, and experienced physicians. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on executing all medical meetings as well as multidisciplinary tumor boards (MTB) we decided to design, perform and evaluate a teaching scholarship in virtual MTB for urologic cancer patients. Methods In this prospective study from December 2020 to July 2022, the authors evaluated designing, implementation, and learning efficacy of a virtual tumor board in the urology department of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (SBMU). All the faculty members (N=25) and urology residents (N=35) were included in this investigation. To make the sessions, multidisciplinary, other related departments including pathology, radio-oncology, medical oncology, radiology, and nuclear medicine were also included. Virtual tumor boards were implanted monthly in twenty sessions. Results A short interview was conducted for the needs assessment. The faculty members and residents’ statements were divided of high, intermediate, and low importance. After implementation satisfaction questionnaire based on the first level of Kirkpatrick model was recorded and the means were 76% and 71% in faculty members and residents respectively for virtual execution. Results of evaluating the intervention according to the second level of Kirkpatrick model and through the tests before and after tumor boards were recorded and the mean differences evaluated by paired t-test were statistically significant. In the last step for external evaluation, the satisfaction rate of 5 arbitrators was 75% for executing a proper virtual MTB. Conclusion A virtual board is an effective learning method for medical education of urology residents. It could help practitioner to coordinate and discuss with different specialties and leads to the best decision for urologic cancer patients.