Professional quality of life and burnout among medical physicists working in radiation oncology: The role of alexithymia and empathy

Background and purpose: The professional quality of life of radiation oncology professionals can be influenced by different contributing factors, including personality traits. Alexithymia involves deficits in emotion processing and awareness. Empathy is the ability to understand another’s ‘state of mind/emotion’. We investigated professional quality of life, including burnout, in radiation oncology, exploring the role of alexithymia and empathy and targeting the population of medical physicists (MPs), since this professional category is usually underrepresented in surveys exploring professional well-being in radiation oncology and MPs may experience professional distress given the increasing complexity of multimodal cancer care. Material and methods: An online survey was addressed to ESTRO members. Participants filled out three questionnaires to evaluate alexithymia, empathy and professional quality of life: a) Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS20); b) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI); c) Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQoL). Professional quality of life as per ProQoL was considered as dependent variable. The three domains of the ProQoL, namely compassion satisfaction (CS), secondary traumatic stress (STS) and burnout were correlated with alexithymia (as per TAS-20) and empathy (as per IRI with three subcategories: empathic concern, perspective taking and personal distress) and demographic/professional characteristics as independent variables. Generalized linear modeling was used. Significant covariates on univariate linear regression analysis were included in the multivariate linear regression model. Results: A total of 308 medical physicists completed all questionnaires. Alexithymia as per TAS-20 was correlated to decreased CS (β = −0.25, p < 0 0.001), increased likelihood for STS (β = 0.26, p < 0 0.001) and burnout (β = 0.47, p < 0 0.001). With respect to empathy, the ‘Empatic Concern’ subscale of the IRI was found to be a significant predictor for increased CS (β = 0.19, p = 0 0.001) and increased STS (β = 0.19, p < 0 0.001), without significant correlation with burnout. The individual’s perception of being valued by own’s supervisor was correlated to increased CS (β = 0.23, p < 0.001), and decreased burnout (β = −0.29, p < 0.001). Conclusions: Alexithymic personality trait increased the likelihood to develop burnout

Recommended ESTRO Core Curriculum for Radiation Oncology/Radiotherapy 4th edition.

In 2017 it was decided to revise the European Core Curriculum for Radiation Oncology/Radiotherapy to produce a 4th edition. The aims of the ESTRO curriculum are to develop comparable standards for training across Europe and to facilitate free movement of specialists across borders. It is also hoped that it will improve the level of training across Europe and will make the non-medical expert roles more explicit. A wide range of stakeholders including National Society representatives, trainees, recently appointed specialists, members of the European Union Medical Specialists Radiotherapy section, an RTT, a radiobiologist, a physicist and lay members from ESTRO staff developed and commented on iterations of the curriculum. The 4th edition is based on the CanMEDS 2015 framework and identifies 14 Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) and the competencies required to perform these. The manager role is replaced by competencies related to leadership. The levels of proficiency required for tumour sites is defined as levels of EPAs. It is hoped that the inclusive method of developing the 4th edition has resulted in a document that will have utility in the wide range of environments in which radiation oncology is practised in Europe