Specialty specific guidance for CESR in Medical Oncology

Published 13 December 2021

The new Medical Oncology curriculum was published in July 2021.

The deadline for CESR applications to apply against the previous version of the curriculum ended 30 June 2023. Any CESR applications submitted after this date will be assessed against the new curriculum.

Specialty specific guidance

The Joint Royal Colleges of Physicians Training Board and GMC have produced guidance for the evidence expected for your application:

How to apply

You can apply through your GMC Online account.

2021 curriculum

Our standards for postgraduate medical curricula are Excellence by design and the framework for Generic professional capabilities. These help postgraduate medical training programmes focus trainee assessment away from an exhaustive list of individual competencies, towards fewer broad capabilities needed to practise safely from your first day as a consultant.

As a result, the 2021 physicianly curricula are outcomes based. This means trainees will be assessed against the fundamental capabilities required of consultants in the working week. These include the general skills which all doctors need to have as well as those needed to carry out all the specific day to day tasks undertaken by a consultant physician (Capabilities in Practice – CiPs).

The Medical Oncology curriculum is made up six Generic CiPs which are common to all physicianly specialties, seven Oncology CiPs shared with Clinical Oncology and five Specialty CiPs unique to Medical Oncology.

In Medical Oncology, two years Internal Medicine Training will replace Core Medical Training as the core training programme. Applicants will be required to demonstrate maintenance of relevant Internal Medicine Stage 1 capabilities (including MRCP).

Content shared between all physicianly specialties

There are six CiPs which are shared between all physicianly specialties:

  • CiP 1 - Able to function successfully within NHS organisational and management systems
  • CiP 2 - Able to deal with ethical and legal issues related to clinical practice
  • CiP 3 - Communicates effectively and is able to share decision making, while maintaining appropriate situational awareness, professional behaviour and professional judgement
  • CiP 4 - Is focused on patient safety and delivers effective quality improvement in patient care
  • CiP 5 - Carrying out research and managing data appropriately
  • CiP 6 - Acting as a clinical teacher and clinical supervisor

Content shared between Medical Oncology and Clinical Oncology

There are seven CiPs which are shared between Medical Oncology and Clinical Oncology:

  • CiP 1 - Applying knowledge and understanding of the scientific principles that underpin malignancy for the provision of high quality and safe patient-centred care
  • CiP 2 - Delivering the acute oncology take, manage oncological emergencies, provide advice to the other healthcare professionals as part of an Acute Oncology Service (AOS) and manage the AOS team and the palliative care/ end-of-life needs of those with advanced cancer
  • CiP 3 - Providing continuity of care to oncology in-patients to include the effective management of disease and treatment-related complications, medical conditions, and the acutely deteriorating patient
  • CiP 4 - Working effectively within, and contribute expert opinion to the tumour-site specific multi-disciplinary team meeting (MDT) to inform evidence-based management plans individualised to the needs of each patient, leading discussions where appropriate
  • CiP 5 - Assessing patients at all stages of the cancer pathway, from diagnosis to end of life care, considering the holistic needs of individuals and the additional needs of vulnerable groups to formulate patient-centred management plans
  • CiP 6 - Safely and effectively delivering, and managing patients receiving, standard systemic anticancer therapy (SACT) in the curative, neo-adjuvant, adjuvant and palliative settings
  • CiP 7 - Acting as an advocate for health promotion and high-quality cancer survivorship, advise on cancer prevention, management of long-term treatment-related sequelae and patient self-management strategies

Medical Oncology specific content

There are five CiPs which are unique to Medical Oncology:

  • CiP 1 - Safely and effectively deliver, and manage patients receiving, intensive complex systemic anti-cancer therapies
  • CiP 2 - Developing guidelines and protocols to safely implement new and emerging diagnostic and systemic anticancer therapeutic approaches
  • CiP 3 - Managing the training and supervision of non-medical prescribers of systemic anticancer therapies
  • CiP 4 - Integrating biomarkers and genomic information to refine diagnosis and develop personalised treatment plans for cancer patients
  • CiP 5 - Implement clinical trials of systemic anticancer treatments at investigator level for all phases, with the skills to lead late phase (Phase III) trials as Principal Investigator

Assessment tools

Medical Oncology trainees now need to use three new tools - DOST, DORPS and the ACAT.

Knowledge and skills

An applicant will need to demonstrate a closer relationship between Medical Oncology and Clinical Oncology, including shared generic and common oncology CiPs and shared workplace-based assessments.

Applicants will also have to demonstrate an increased emphasis on acute oncology to support acute unselected takes.