Course directors

• Brendan McClean, Medical Physicist, St Lukes Radiation Oncology Network, Dublin (IE)
• Petra Reijnders-Thijssen, Manager Quality & Patient Safety, Maastro, Maastricht (NL)

Teachers

• Mary Coffey, Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Radiation Therapy, Trinity College, Dublin (IE)
• Nicolas Pourel, Radiation Oncologist, Institute Sainte-Catherine, Avignon (FR)
• Aude Vaandering, Radiation Technologist, UCL Cliniques Universitaires St. Luc, Brussels (BE)

Local Organiser

• Christoph Bert, Medical Physicist, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and UK Erlangen, Erlangen (DE)

This course is part of a two-year cycle on quality management in radiotherapy, consisting of two complementary modules:

• Risk management and patient safety
• Quality improvement and indicators.

Radiation therapy activities expose operators and patients to the risk of unintended events that may cause harm. Harm to operators is very uncommon in radiotherapy, but harm to patients does happen and when it is significant, can attract considerable press coverage in many countries. These widely publicized accidents have focused the attention of both the radiotherapy community and the regulatory authorities on what preventive actions might be put in place to avoid their repetition or reduce the effect.

Fortunately, accidents that actually result in harm to patients are rare. However,, small irregularities in the radiotherapy process are very frequent in every department. A key to understanding  the genesis of accidents is the fact that these small irregularities (called precursors), as benign as they seem when considered in isolation, can mesh together to result in a fully developed accident. An event causing harm to a patient  is not usually the result of uncommon irregularities; it results from the coincidence of common irregularities that unfortunately occur at a given point in time.

This course aims to identify accident  precursors. Actively working on these precursors (registration, description, classification), and working on improvements in the radiotherapy process (prevention) is an efficient way to substantially decrease the risk and impact of accidents. In some European countries, it is mandatory to record and report on precursors.

In addition, the course will also describe methods of preventive analysis that can be done for any radiotherapy process, by trying to identify critical elements that need specific monitoring or quality controls (failure mode analysis). An efficient incident recording system helps inform risk and process weaknesses.  Such a system presupposes good communication both within and sometimes outside the department. Elements of communication, human factors and ethics are therefore also presented and discussed during the course.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course participants should be able to:

• Understand the cause, frequency and effects of incidents/accidents in a radiotherapy department

• Understand the principles of reactive management to incidents (registration, analysis and feedback to the Quality Management System) and of proactive management of safety (incident prevention)
• Consider risk management in relation to the changing of information system dynamics in radiotherapy processes
• Know how to communicate about radiotherapy incidents, with the patient and his/her relatives, within the department itself and with the media.

Course content

• What is risk?  What is an acceptable risk? Psychology of making mistakes
• Ethics for radiation medicine professionals. A just reporting culture
• Example of the genesis of an accident (take a recent example, relevant to radiotherapy of today)

• Addressing new risks concerning AI, cyberattack, VUCA
• ROSEIS: the precursor in Europe. Frequency of incidents (who reports and what type of incidents are reported)
• Taxonomy and classification, distinction between incident and accident
• Analysis and return on experience (root cause analysis) and Human factors
•  PRISMA as example (The Netherlands, Belgium)
• Benchmarking
• Bowtie, scenario analyses
• Health failure mode and effect analysis (HFMEA), a prospective risk management method
• Practical exercises (hands on)
• Communication:
  • to the patient
  • to the media
  • to the organisation (departmental, hospital level)
• Specific training of staff, internal and external (team management)
• Comprehensive quality management in Radiotherapy Legal aspects of incident reporting
• Performance indicators.

Prerequisites

The two courses on Quality Management, Risk Management and Quality Assessment, are designed to be complementary and it is recommended to attend both to get a complete picture of quality management. However, the order in which they are taken does not matter. To fully profit from the course it is recommended that participants have at least three years’ experience in a radiation oncology or medical physics department to have a complete picture of the radiotherapy process.

Teaching methods

• 23 hours of lectures
• 6 hours of practical workshops.

Methods of assessment

Evaluation form

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME

Key words

Patient safety, risk management, VUCA.

Accreditation

Application for CME recognition will be submitted to the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME), an institution of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). EACCME credits are recognized by the American Medical Association towards the Physician’s Recognition Award (PRA). Information on the status of the applications can be obtained from the ESTRO office.

Uniklinikum Erlangen, Department of Radiation Oncology

Universitätsstraße 27,

91054 Erlangen,

Germany

Membership

ESTRO members can order products at substantially reduced prices. To benefit from the member registration rate, you must subscribe for the ESTRO membership 2026 BEFORE registering to the course. To become an ESTRO member, benefit from the member registration rate and discover the many other member advantages, please visit the membership page.

Fees

* Members with specialty RadiationTherapist (RTT) may register at the In-Training fee

The fee includes the course material, coffees, lunches, and the social event.

Advance registration & payment are required.

Access to homework and/or course material will become available upon receipt of full payment.

Insurance and cancellation

Participants are strongly advised to take out their own personal insurance policy. ESTRO does not accept liability for individual medical, travel or personal accidents or incidents. Participants are strongly advised to take insurance policies to cover flight and accommodation cancellation penalties. ESTRO will not refund any travel or accommodation expenses.

For any cancellation made by the course participant, ESTRO School Events Cancellation Policy will be followed and all stated penalty fees will be applied.

Reduced fees

Members from emerging countries may register at a preferential rate of 350 Euro. Emerging country fee applies to individuals from low-income and lower-middle-income economies according to the World Bank listing here.

Additionally, all specialties from the following countries can benefit from this preferential rate: Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine.  In addition, medical physicists from Cyprus can email education@estro.org to apply for this fee.

The preferential rate of 350 Euro is granted automatically when you click on the  BOOK NOW  button and the three conditions below are met:

1. Only ESTRO members for 2026 are eligible (please make sure your 2026 membership is in order before you click on the BOOK NOW  button)
2. Only one course per person per year can be subsidized by ESTRO
3. Sponsored candidates are not entitled to reduced fees (the invoicing address has to be the one of the participant)  

 Please note:

• We can only guarantee a certain number of reduced fees per course
• Application deadlines are the same as early registration fees