New: Navigating Multidisciplinary Care podcast
By Avinash Chaurasia

We are excited to announce a new podcast especially for early career members and members-in-training titled Navigating Multidisciplinary Care: Enhancing Collaboration for Better Patient Outcomes. ASTRO Early Career Committee member Avinash Chaurasia, MD, a radiation oncologist at Brooke Army Medical Center, interviews Eric Singhi, MD, a medical oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Timothy Vreeland, MD, a surgical oncologist at Brooke Army Medical Center about why and how to enhance collaboration with multidisciplinary providers.

Get to know ASTRO committees/councils

The deadline for volunteering for ASTRO committees is rapidly approaching on May 2! One of the best ways to get involved and stay engaged in ASTRO is through volunteering on one or more of ASTRO’s various committees. We would love to have your input in the Early Career Committee, but as a comprehensive organization, other committee work spans a wide variety of areas and needs your expertise! To demystify and contextualize the work of these committees, we caught up with some of the Council and Committee Chairs to learn about their committees seeking volunteers this year and the work they do. We asked them (1) what kinds of projects their committee was working on, (2) where an early career member can make the greatest impact, and (3) what kinds of interest from an early career member would best fit into the current work of the committee. Read more to find out how you can contribute to Workforce, Clinical Affairs and Quality, Communications, Government Relations, Health Policy, and Radiopharmaceutical Therapy:

Workforce Committee – Chirag Shah, MD, Chair
We are currently looking at projects throughout the workforce spectrum including defining the supply of radiation oncologists, the impact of adaptive radiation therapy on the workforce, the job market, as well as looking at special populations within the workforce (e.g., Physician scientists, rural practitioners).

Early career volunteers can provide the greatest impact by being engaged and being willing to share their thoughts and experiences as it pertains to the current and future presence in the radiation oncology workforce.

Interests that fit well include having a desire to better understand the radiation oncology workforce, some experience with population level data helps but is not necessary. Also, we are working to put out more publications and have ASTRO presentations so interest in those areas would be helpful as well.

Clinical Affairs and Quality Council – Douglas Martin, MD, FASTRO, Chair

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) Resource Panel – new group accepting volunteers. This is a rapidly evolving environment for radiation oncology and will impact the field for years to come. This is a good group for early career volunteers as we address quality and safety aspects of AI’s place in the specialty. There are several initiatives we hope to kick off this year.
• Multidisciplinary Quality Affairs Subcommittee (MDQA) – this group has representatives from all professions in radiation oncology and works on quality and safety initiatives. Early career members interested in these topics would be a welcome addition to the group.
• Guidelines: This is a very busy and popular committee. We often get around 60 volunteers and can only accept six or so a year to be manageable. There is often a misconception that being on the committee = being on the guidelines, but this is not the case. Committee members work to prep the concepts for each guideline and are involved in the methodology. They also review documents ahead of Board approval and endorsement considerations. Early career members looking to be on a guideline can apply for the specific guideline task force.

Communications Committee – Malcolm Mattes, MD, Chair
The ASTRO Communications Committee is involved in a wide variety of initiatives. We develop and update all patient education resources that ASTRO provides (e.g., RTAnswers website, podcasts, videos and print brochures). We also provide resources that radiation oncologists can use for interdisciplinary education, and resources that medical students can use to explore the specialty. Additionally, committee members help shape the ASTRO.org and RTAnswers.org websites by providing crucial feedback on user experience, content and flow. Committee members can also get involved with ASTRO's social media efforts, ASTROnews, and initiatives aimed at improving the public perception of radiation therapy in cancer care.

Early career volunteers can participate in all aspects of the committee's work. Leadership opportunities are available to those interested in taking ownership of some of the committee’s projects. We also welcome ideas for new projects from all of the committee members.

Early career members who are interested in developing and promoting resources that any radiation oncologist can use to enhance patient care would fit well with the current work of the committee.

Government Relations Council – Casey Chollet-Lipscomb, MD, FASTRO, Chair

• Congressional Relations Subcommittee: This subcommittee, which accepts all volunteers, spearheads efforts to influence Congress on ASTRO’s legislative priorities, including Medicare payments (ROCR Act), prior authorization reform, and increasing cancer research funding. The subcommittee recommends legislative priorities to pursue and then works to advance those priorities through ASTRO’s Advocacy Day and through constant contact with their congressional delegations. This subcommittee also reviews legislation to recommend an ASTRO position on relevant bills.
• Nuclear Regulatory Commission Subcommittee: This subcommittee advises ASTRO on issues at the NRC impacting the use of radioactive materials used in radiation therapy. The subcommittee reviews NRC policies to help balance the need for access and safety for important treatment modalities and has been recently very focused on issues related to radiopharmaceuticals.
• State Captain Initiative: This subcommittee, which accepts all volunteers, leads ASTRO’s grassroots efforts. The subcommittee encourages ASTRO members in their states to respond to grassroots alerts to Congress and meet with their representatives locally, including an emphasis on hosting clinic tours. State Captains also monitor and, as needed, engage on policy issues in their state impacting radiation oncology. State captains also work to raise money for ASTRO PAC.

As a small specialty competing in the vast marketplace of voices in Washington, radiation oncology can’t afford to have anyone sit on the sidelines, and volunteers are needed on all GR Committee subcommittees. For early career volunteers, decisions made today on Capitol Hill will affect the rest of their careers, making it critical that they engage with Congress through ASTRO early and often. In addition, a key to influencing Congress is building strong relationships with the members of Congress and their staff. Starting early and building a long-term relationship can make the difference on legislation and policy issues that can have a dramatic impact on the practice of radiation oncology.

When we look at our most successful ASTRO advocates on Capitol Hill, some common attributes emerge. Often, they are younger members that “caught the bug” for advocacy in residency and stayed engaged. They also tend to be “people people.” They are comfortable and energized by engaging with others one-on-one and in groups. They find there is a lot in common between talking about radiation oncology with congressional members and staff to their daily communication with patients in the clinic. Another key attribute is enthusiasm for radiation oncology. Our best advocates are driven by a desire to educate others about radiation therapy and pursue policies that advance the specialty.

Health Policy Council – Catheryn Yashar, MD, FASTRO, Chair
The Health Policy Council has two subcommittees that are accepting volunteers for the 2025-2026 Committee year. They are the Code Utilization and Application Committee and the Payer Relations Committee.

• The Code Utilization and Application Committee or CUAC is involved in coding education. The committee responds to member coding questions, as well as produces ASTRO's Coding Resource which is updated annually. CUAC also hosts the ASTRO Coding and Coverage Seminar every year. The virtual program includes an overview of radiation oncology coding featuring case studies, as well as live interactive discussion with program faculty.
• The Payer Relations Committee or PRC is involved in payer engagement. This committee fields member complaints about delays and denials of care and onerous payer coverage policies. They actively reach out to payers to address these challenges and seek to improve relationships with the payers. PRC hosts regular meetings focused on resolving coverage issues with officials at United Healthcare, Aetna, Cigna, and the Blues plans, as well as with Medicare Administrative Contractor organizations. They also produce model policies covering brachytherapy, SRS, SBRT, IMRT and Proton Beam Therapy that are designed to inform payer coverage policies.

Early career members can make a significant impact in either of these committees by not only providing their time and expertise, but also by collaborating with other committee members on the various projects that each committee pursues.

Committee members with an interest in coding and payer issues are clearly going to benefit from participating in either CUAC or PRC. Those with a general interest in health policy would also benefit because the work of these two committees informs much of the broader policy work that ASTRO pursues, including ROCR and code development and valuation.

Radiopharmaceutical Therapy RPT Committee – Ana Kiess, MD, PhD, Chair
Current projects include: collaborating with other societies to improve the multidisciplinary care aspect of radiopharmaceutical therapies, developing the RPT Specialty Meeting for 2026, understanding resident/radiation oncologist Authorized User (AU) training requirements, establishing learning collaboratives to help learn from one another, and developing patient materials.

The greatest impact by early career volunteers is by contributing their own experiences and perspectives in how they became an AU.

Committee members should be actively engaged in delivering radiopharmaceutical therapies.

Thank you to the volunteers who pulled together the content for this issue of the Early Career newsletter. The Early Career Committee looks forward to early career members getting involved in all of ASTRO’s committees. The Call for Volunteers closes next week, so don’t delay. Volunteer today. You can volunteer for up to two committees. Refer to the Roadmap to Committee Service for an overview of the volunteer timeline.

Don’t miss Advocacy Day!
By Austin Sim

Advocacy Day is just around the corner – come to Washington, DC and join your colleagues on Capitol Hill to advocate for our specialty on May 19-20, 2025! With ongoing code changes and looming changes in reimbursement it is more critical than ever to engage with congressional leadership and ensure we are able to continue providing the best care for our patients. Although the list of issues for discussion has not yet been finalized, the reintroduction of Radiation Oncology Case Rate (ROCR) program will likely feature heavily among our congressional asks.

As a regular attendee since 2019, I hope to see you there!