We need your participation! Fill in this questionnaire before 1 August about your perceptions regarding your work environment.

 

Background

In 2024, the ESTRO Young/Early Career Committee launched a working group dedicated to understanding and improving retention within the radiotherapy workforce. Research highlights that staff shortages are a challenge across countries, affecting all disciplines in radiotherapy. To explore this further, we conducted a short pilot survey through the young ESTRO opinion panel, which revealed valuable insights into factors that influence retention. Building on these findings, we now aim to investigate this topic on a larger scale.

Our goal is to approach retention from a positive narrative, by identifying factors that enhance job retention and fostering long-term commitment within radiotherapy departments. We recognise that retention is not only critical for institutions but also for individual professionals. Issues such as limited resources, frequent organisational changes, and team turnover can directly impact work environment. By sharing your experiences, you can help to shape evidence-based strategies that improve workplace conditions, thereby benefitting both current and future radiotherapy professionals.

This questionnaire explores what motivates you to stay in radiotherapy and how these positive aspects can be reinforced. The findings will be widely shared to support departments in developing policies that enhance job satisfaction and long-term engagement.

We therefore warmly invite everyone in the community, regardless of your career stage, whether you're early-career, mid-level, or senior, to take part anonymously in the survey to contribute to this important research, in which we aim to gather large‑scale data that will form the basis of future retention-policy strategies in radiation oncology.

Access the survey link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z38LDZ9

The young ESTRO retention working group

Dylan Callens - Department of Radiation Oncology and Laboratory of Experimental Radiotherapy, UZ KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

Jolien Heukelom  - Department of Radiation Oncology, MAASTRO, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, the Netherlands

Hanna Alajõe - ESTRO Office, Brussels, Belgium

Azadeh Abravan - Division of Cancer Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

Antonio Angrisani - Department of Radiation Oncology, Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland, EOC, Bellinzona, Switzerland

Nathalie Cnops - ESTRO Office, Brussels, Belgium

Danielle Fairweather - University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, University College Hospital, London, UK

Morten Horsholt Kristensen - Department of Oncology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark

Tiuri Kroese - Department of Radiation Oncology, University Hospital Zürich, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Federico Mastroleo - Division of Radiation Oncology, European Institute of Oncology IRCCS, Milan, Italy; Department of Oncology and Hemato-Oncology, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

Steven Petit - Department of Radiotherapy, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Daniel Portik - Department of Radiation Oncology, MAASTRO, University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Bartek Tomasik - Department of Oncology and Radiotherapy and Centre for Experimental Cardiooncology, Medical University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland

Amanda Webster - University College Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, University College Hospital, London, UK