Oncology curriculum in developing countries and the lessons to be learned.

TO THE EDITOR: We read with great interest the article by Gaffan et al on educating undergraduate medical students about oncology. We come from a developing country where oncology teaching was effectively nonexistent. We admire the efforts invested in creating an oncology curriculum for training. Oncology is an ever-expanding field, and with the current progress in research of new treatment modalities and the ever-aging population, this trend will no doubt continue. Trained properly, the doctors of tomorrow will be in a better position to understand and subsequently better manage this complex group of patients. From our personal perspectives, having moved to the United Kingdom where the management of oncologic conditions is much more aggressive and effective, we can appreciate the importance for the early foundations of knowledge. Good undergraduate training is dependent not only on the teaching methodology, but also on the curriculum content, which we acknowledge can be hard to balance for such a vast subject. Both aspects, however, seem to have been thoroughly addressed by the Oncology Education Committee of the Cancer Council of Australia, with its work on the ideal oncology curriculum, and by Gaffan et al, regarding the teaching methods. While we appreciate the epidemiologic differences and variability of disease between the developed and developing worlds, we would like to see this approach to training being mirrored in Pakistan for the future generations of doctors. Developing countries with limited research resources must make use of the ideal oncology curriculum. This would be an immense contribution to the medical community of the lessdeveloped countries.