Multidisciplinary medical care in radiation oncology

: Multidisciplinary medical care is now needed in the clinical setting of cancer treatment. In Japan, radiotherapy technologists and nurses have long played an important role in radiation oncology departments in many hospitals, resulting in spontaneously-arising multidisciplinary medical care teams. Multidisciplinary medical care, in which many medical staff work together on an equal footing, is based on multidisciplinary conferences, interdisciplinary communications, and most of all, doctors' decisions to transfer important daily work to paramedicals. The newly-introduced consultation fee for outpatient radiotherapy is a special charge for radiotherapy patients. To charge this fee, daily observation of patients by technologists or nurses is required, a practice which promotes multidisciplinary medical care in the field of radiation oncology. The number of technologists and nurses who specialize in radiation oncology has been increasing in recent years. When hospitals allow them to devote their specialized knowledge and skills entirely to radiation oncology practice, multidisciplinary medical care will develop within the clinical practice of radiation oncology.