Conferences & Didactics

The didactic curriculum is organized around a rotating monthly disease-group theme: the disease-specific didactic sessions, journal club, and clinical case-reasoning conferences all converge on the same focus area each month, reinforcing the same concepts across complementary formats. The cycle repeats across the three years so that each fellow encounters every core topic multiple times.

The schedule of conferences includes:

• Disease-specific didactic sessions — two to three faculty-led sessions per week, organized by disease area (e.g., thoracic oncology, breast oncology) and aligned with the Hematology and Medical Oncology board content outlines and the ASCO Self-Evaluation Program (SEP) and ASH Self-Assessment Program (SAP).
• Clinical case-reasoning conferences — twice-monthly, fellow-presented cases focused on diagnostic and management reasoning, with active faculty teaching and discussion.
• Journal club — monthly, fellow-led discussion of practice-changing literature and critical appraisal of methodology, with faculty engagement throughout.
• Fellow town halls — monthly meetings of fellows and program leadership to identify concerns, capture feedback, and shape ongoing program improvement.
• Dartmouth Cancer Center Grand Rounds — weekly, featuring Dartmouth and visiting national speakers on clinical, translational, and basic science research topics.
• Disease-specific multidisciplinary tumor boards — weekly, across the major disease groups (e.g., thoracic, GI, GU, breast, lymphoma). Fellows are expected to attend the tumor board for their current disease-group rotation.
• Department of Medicine Morbidity and Mortality Conference — weekly, providing case-based, cross-specialty learning with a high level of audience participation.

A typical weekly conference schedule (conferences in bold are required for fellows):

Some conferences occur at the same time; fellows attend the one most relevant to their current rotation.