Medical education is nothing new to Grerk Sutamtewagul, MD, and Will Zeitler, MD, MPH, who have both been involved in teaching since their medical school days. What is relatively new, however, are their roles as directors of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship, guiding fellows in the division’s specialized career tracks, or even helping them create one of their own. With their first year as program directors complete, Sutamtewagul and Zeitler have been surprised and delighted by all the program has to offer clinicians.
“Our program has a very good track record of tailoring our fellow education to suit their needs and to keep up with the ever-changing science of hematology-oncology,” Sutamtewagul said.
This track record is something the directors hope to continue as they develop the fellowship in new and inspiring ways.
“I’m excited to get our fellows more experiential learning and find ways to help them grow, not only as physicians, but as people that have to navigate the health care system as efficiently as possible,” Zeitler added.
The Hem/Onc fellowship is seen by many as one of the shining stars of the department, in part because of its overlap with the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center (HCCC), which is designated as both Iowa’s only tertiary care referral center and only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center. The fellowship offers trainees great diversity if they want to work in a clinical setting, a wide variety of opportunities for basic or translations research if that is their interest, or typically, a combination of the two. Despite the nationwide deficit of hematologists and oncologists, Iowa’s fellowship environment finds driven and capable candidates who will not only fill in the gaps, but make valuable contributions to their field.
“Our department and our cancer center has a dedication to striving for the best—not only in outcomes for patients, but in finding the best treatments and therefore providing excellence and education for our fellows, too,” Zeitler said.
Additionally, the NCI designation for the HCCC is maintained by quality contributions to science, year after year. In a field as fast-moving as cancer biology, it means innovation is not optional.
“It’s a difficult designation to get as a cancer center and it’s a difficult thing to keep up,” Sutamtewagul said. “It’s not just the specialty care that we are providing them, but also strong basic research, translational research, and interdisciplinary research.”
To that end, Zeitler and Sutamtewagul want fellows to be able to customize their fellowship to become experts in the specialties they are most passionate about. There is no shortage of ambition from the fellows in the program, they say, so guiding them to build their own fellowship by exploring experiential learning and cutting-edge technology comes first. Fellows become part of a multidisciplinary team that can take part in specialized disease boards, conduct research throughout the University of Iowa campus and at the nearby VA Iowa City Healthcare System. At both locations, fellows work alongside hundreds of specialists of all areas in addition to their supervising faculty members.
The two also stress the social side of the fellowship experience—building relationships and preventing burnout through extracurricular activities and events is another integral part of the program design. Fellows do a lot of hard work, Zeitler says, and must learn to lean on their support systems. Members organize group meals and activities like bowling or trivia nights to relax and bond.
With these important aspects of the program in place, Sutamtewagul and Zeitler look forward to facing their second year of challenges and discoveries — with a few new fellows. They hope to continue to grow the program, both in enrollment numbers and quality of experience, by building on what they have learned and by seeking out new avenues to teach and be taught.