Summer school for budding oncologists at Tata Memorial Hospital

Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) Mumbai soon to open up a summer school for under graduates and post graduate medical students from civic and government-run medical colleges to study oncology. This novel initiative has been taken in collaboration with Kings College of London.

Since TMH is known to be a pioneer institute of oncology, it is an apt ground for budding oncologists. Oncology is essentially, a branch of medicine that deals with tumors. The suggested course at TMH will involve a ten-day basic oncology lecture padded with rounds of different areas of the hospitals related to the subject. Take for instance radiotherapy department, day care chemotherapy ward, out patient department, pain and palliative care department and oncology rehabilitation unit.

"The philosophy behind this course is to develop aptitude in oncology and to understand its basic principles. This year, we will be allowing fifty students for this ten-day program and students have been selected by screening," said Dr. Kailash Sharma, director of academics at TMH in his statement-of-purpose written by the students.

Owing to the fact that the hospital has a standalone super speciality institute offering degrees such as Master of Chirurgical (Mch) and Doctor in Medicine (DM) in radio therapy for students across the country, oncology is a sought-after department at TMH.

Sharma further added that, "We have kept a few reserved seats for sponsored candidates from government medical colleges and government-recognized cancer centers to provide trained and qualified human resource in the field of oncology."