title: Cancer education for medical students in developing countries: where do we stand and how to improve?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This article is a review of the literature regarding the state of oncology education for medical students in developing countries, and possible solutions to the problems at hand.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, ERIC, The Cochrane CENTRAL Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) and Google Scholar were searched using the terms oncology, undergraduate, cancer, education and teaching.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The search resulted in 40 relevant articles in total. Ten articles showed that there is a lack of adequate knowledge in the scientific, clinical and psychological aspects of oncology and palliative care amongst students and physicians in developing countries. Eight articles describe the relevance and usefulness of summer schools, workshops and trainings. The rest of them discuss possible methods of addressing the issue, the most important of which is the inclusion of a clinical oncology rotation in the undergraduate syllabus.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Graduated physicians and medical students are a long way from reaching the standard knowledge and skills required in oncology. Thus, there is a pressing need to reform the undergraduate medical curricula in developing countries in order to increase cancer awareness for better graduated future physicians.
authors.affiliation: Kasr Al-Aini Medical School, Cairo University, Egypt.
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amgad
authors.forename: Emad
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shash
authors.forename: Rabab
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gaafar
mesh_terms: D003479:Curriculum; D003906:Developing Countries; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D006801:Humans; D008495:Medical Oncology / Q000193:education*