Catchum - Project - Background Page

History of the CATCHUM Project
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1992-1995 (Texas Cancer Council)

Fundamental question: Can a dialog and supporting mechanisms be established among the 8 Texas medical schools regarding how to advance cancer prevention, detection, and control in their curricula?

Deans surveyed. Structuring group communication to reach consensus on goals, plans, and positions( the Delphi technique), staff at the UTMB Cancer Center surveyed the dean and the faculty member with the greatest cancer expertise from each of the 8 Texas medical schools. Deans were asked about their familiarity with the Texas Cancer Plan, feasibility of its 4 goals, how well their schools addressed the plan's 13 objectives, familiarity with the report of the Physician Oncology Education Program summarized in the plan, and approaches to involving their schools in the plan.

Results. Only 3 of the 8 deans were aware of or had read the Texas Cancer Plan. All the deans considered Goals I (lowering risks), II (early detection, diagnosis, and treatment), and IV (advancing control) feasible or somewhat feasible within medical education at their schools by the year 2000, or to be addressed at their medical schools by August 31, 1993.

Only half of the deans felt their schools were doing an adequate job meeting following objectives:

communicating risk information to the public
providing information to the public regarding availability of cancer detection and diagnostic services
enhancing the quality of existing resources, services, and programs (least well-met objective)
assisting cancer patients to identify necessary care and support
accelerating development of new measures to control cancer in Texas

The Standardized Assessment Project (SAP). Forerunner to the CATCHUM project, the SAP developed a cognitive examination to test medical students' knowledge. Average scores of the nearly 1,000 medical students tested in Texas showed they knew only 60% of the information necessary to effectively prevent, detect, and control the 7 most common cancers. These findings, reported in the American Association for Cancer Education Cancer Instructional Survey II and presented to the curricular deans of Texas medical schools in December 1992, underscore the low priority given to cancer prevention and control in most medical curricula in the United States.

The CATCHUM consortium. The 8 medical schools formed the consortium that constitutes CATCHUM. The curricular deans and cancer specialists from each school became the steering committee and in 1993 began meeting quarterly with observers from the Physician Oncology Education Program of the Texas Medical Association.

Over the next 2 years, this project undertook the following tasks:

develop core competencies and identify curricular deficiencies
assemble, review, and organize available learning materials
identify key faculty for cancer control education committees, trained for leadership roles in their respective schools in June 1993
identify current faculty and courses addressing cancer prevention, screening, early detection, and control
develop standardized patient cases for problem-based learning (PBL)
develop objective structured clinical examination to assess clinical competence
obtain new funding and begin planning for continuation of the project
(evaluate its impact, effectiveness, and efficiency)

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