Sergey Badalyan, Medical Oncology Resident at Yeolyan Hematology and Oncology Center, Assistant Managing Editor at OncoDaily Medical Journal, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Wrapping up an intense 2 days at the ESMO-EANM Advanced Course on Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications of Nuclear Medicine in Oncology in Essen.
At some point during the course, I caught myself thinking:
“Why am I suddenly discussing isotope half-lives, arterial phase imaging, absorbed radiation doses, and PET uptake patterns?”
As a medical oncology trainee, these are not the topics you usually expect to spend hours debating, but that was probably the most interesting part of the experience. The course constantly pushed me outside the usual “systemic therapy only” mindset and made me look at cancer care through the eyes of nuclear medicine physicians, radiation oncologists, physicists, and imaging specialists.
Am I a radiotherapist or a nuclear physicist now? Of course not.
But do I now better understand how they think, approach cancer treatment, assess imaging, evaluate toxicity, or design treatment strategies? Absolutely, and that may be one of the most valuable parts of experiences like this.
Some of the discussions that stayed with me most were around:
- the expanding role of PRRT in NETs
- theranostics as a true precision oncology tool
- how imaging increasingly guides treatment decisions
- the challenge of sequencing therapies in heterogeneous diseases
- and why multidisciplinary tumor boards are becoming more important than ever
Beyond the lectures themselves, it was also exciting to meet colleagues from different countries and backgrounds, as well as from Armenia, all approaching oncology from completely different angles but ultimately working toward the same goal.
Essen was nice, highly technical at times, occasionally overwhelming, but exactly the kind of environment that pushes you to learn beyond your own field.”
Other articles featuring Sergey Badalyan on OncoDaily.
