In two weeks, Carver College of Medicine leaders will ceremoniously cloak UI’s new class of medical students in their white coats at Hancher Auditorium. Some M1s have had their sights set on a specialty long before their white coat ceremony, while others anticipate that new learning experiences and mentorship opportunities will direct their focus. Aimed at guiding both varieties of M1s, medical interest groups at Carver College exist to help students explore specific specialties and subspecialities. One of these medical interest groups has set a new standard for students’ subspecialty involvement since its founding two years ago.

Opportunities, Information, and Networking in Cancer (OINC) connects a growing group of 23 medical students interested in oncology with residents, fellows, and faculty who provide mentorship, shadowing, and research opportunities in the field. M4s Sierra Sheets and Brianna Iverson created the group and its inaugural 2023 journal issue to foster meaningful student involvement in oncology through accessible faculty networks. Each issue features OINC leadership contributions that highlight education, resources, reflection, and member research in oncology. They also include a scannable QR code that directs readers to an Excel sheet listing university clinicians and researchers who provide shadowing and research experience.

OINC co-president Matthew Gao, M3, credits OINC for connecting him with his mentor, Udhayvir Singh Grewal, MD, a previous UI Health Care Hematology & Oncology fellow. The two work on several projects exploring the treatment of patients with neuroendocrine tumors. Additionally, Gao investigates if the time of day patients receive immunotherapy injections affects treatment outcomes alongside UI Hematology & Medical Oncology fellow John Smestad, MD, PhD.

Gao’s OINC network helped him to contribute to the research strides that he said make oncology a compelling subspecialty. “I am interested in the extraordinary pace that cancer treatment is evolving. Many diseases that were considered a death sentence even a few years ago are now considered treatable thanks to significant advances in cancer research. It will be exciting to see what the field will look like a decade from now,” Gao said.

Just as in oncologic research, OINC leadership anticipates that the group will evolve. OINC co-president Jason Chen, M3, said the group is rapidly expanding the network of oncology fellows and physicians who provide student support. The group has also established contact with the oncology interest group at UC San Francisco to coordinate inter-school projects in the future.

The defining dynamics
Mentoring faculty and fellows provide members with resources and guidance throughout the research process. The group’s faculty mentor, Mohammed Milhem, MBBS, clinical professor in Hematology, Oncology, and Blood & Marrow Transplantation, distinguished the trainee-faculty dynamic as a “connectivity mentorship.” Milhem prioritizes giving students a high degree of independence during research projects. He believes that when OINC members learn something through self-directed trial and error, they can more readily pass on their new knowledge to other members.

“The mentorship is not for telling the students what to do. It’s about allowing them a little bit of glue to stick to a project, so that the students believe the project they started is still theirs and can be passed on to different students who will pick it up will finish it,” Milhem said. “The students are all trying to get into residencies and are competing for fellowships, but the ones who become stronger teach the rest how to develop new strengths, too.”

OINC leadership describes this dynamic as “collaborative competition.” While investing in their respective research and careers, members prioritize the group’s collective success by teaching each other and contributing to one another’s research. Members mentor one another as much as they receive mentorship from residents, fellows, and faculty.

As one of the first OINC members, Milhem said that Chen helped cultivate a culture of collaborative competition by mentoring members through processes like obtaining patient cohorts and writing IRBs.

“Our approach to research projects is aligned with [collaborative competition] in the sense that students will take the lead on individual projects but will be open to both accepting help from peers and providing help to others’ projects as well,” Chen said. “When students don’t know how to do something (abstracting data, obtaining a patient cohort, logistical help with setting up IRB, etc.), we always have other students at different stages of their project who can help.”

Describing their why
Research and collaboration may be at the heart of OINC, but for many members, personal purpose and lived experience shape their interest in oncology. Matthew Moon, M3, is OINC’s events coordinator and has been a part of the organization since his first year of medical school. Moon’s childhood experience navigating his mom’s battle with cancer motivated his oncology pursuit.

“My mom passed away from cancer when I was nine, so that is definitely something that motivated me to want to go into oncology early on. I wanted to be able to help patients like her, as well as families like my own, as cancer affects not only the patient but also their loved ones,” Moon said. “I really like the idea of getting to know my patients and what is important to them so that I can work together with them on their goals.”

Moon observed trusting physician-patient relationships while shadowing in Milhem’s clinic, which reinforced his passion for oncology. Moon also stays involved with research projects that allow him to explore the field’s improvements in treatment trials—this being another motivation for his subspecialty pursuit. He recently published a case series on the use of PDL1 inhibitors in two patients with rare tumors who demonstrated optimistic treatment outcomes.

The field’s emphasis on improving treatment and patient care broadens the scope of OINC members’ research and shadowing experiences. Like Moon, OINC newsletter lead Isabella Phillips, M3, is interested in oncology’s research advancements and meaningful provider-client relationships. Through shadowing Milhem and working on various research projects, she said she continues to be “drawn to the complexity and constantly evolving nature of oncology, as well as the deep emotional connections formed with patients during some of their most vulnerable moments.”

Getting involved with OINC
Those interested in learning more about OINC can visit the group’s website. For specific inquiries about joining, students can contact the group’s co-presidents, whose emails are listed below.

Jason Chen: jason-h-chen@uiowa.edu

Matthew Gao: matthew-gao@uiowa.edu