BONUS: the National Oncology Network for Students and Junior Doctors

Published Date: 07th July 2022

Publication Authors: Keshwara S

The British Oncology Network for Undergraduate Societies (BONUS) is a national oncology network for medical students and junior doctors. The network aims to promote careers and education in clinical, medical, surgical and interventional oncology, a subspeciality of interventional radiology, and is, therefore, a ‘pan-oncology society’ [[1]]. Both a recent Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) workforce report and the NHS Cancer Workforce plan have shown a shortage of oncologists, making initiatives such as BONUS that aim to promote oncology from an undergraduate level even more important [2, 3, 4]. BONUS recognises the importance of the multidisciplinary team within oncology, acknowledges the pace and scale of scientific and clinical research within the field and strives to provide early exposure to oncology, as well as accessible resources for education. In 2019, the RCR launched the Undergraduate Oncology Societies Association (UOSA), but we are not aware of any other undergraduate oncology schemes or initiatives similar to BONUS that exist in the UK [[5]]. BONUS was founded in 2016 by medical students from Scottish universities who felt that oncology teaching during undergraduate medical education was limited and that many students had a poor knowledge of a career in oncology [[6],[7]].

Khoury, EG; Keshwara, SM et al. (2022). BONUS: the National Oncology Network for Students and Junior Doctors. Clinical Oncology. 34(10), pp.678-682. [Online]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clon.2022.06.008 [Accessed 21 December 2022]

 

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