Abstract: Objective To investigate the needs and gains of eight-year clinical medicine program students during their oncology internships, and provide reference for the reform of clinical teaching in oncology. Methods A questionnaire survey was conducted among 52 students from Peking Union Medical College, Tsinghua University School of Medicine, and Peking Union Medical College “4+4” medical doctor program who underwent internships in the Department of Oncology at Peking Union Medical College from July 2023 to June 2024 in order to examine their basic knowledge of oncology, the courses they are interested in, their preference for teaching methods and the gains from the internships. The exam was conducted before and after the internship. Results All 52 students participated in the survey and examination. Most students were interested in clinical diagnosis and treatment, new drug development and progress in basic research. All students acknowledged that their ability to solve actual clinical problems had been improved after the internship in oncology, 51 (98.08%) recognized that their capacity of literature searching and reviewing ,integrating the information and reasoning had improved, while 50 (96.15%) believed that their capacity to read Computed Tomography (CT) images or perform imaging diagnosis had improved. The number of students who were interested in oncology increased from 41 (78.85%) before the internship and up to 47 (90.38%) after the training. The average score of the students before internship was 63.88±8.90, and then significantly increased up to 82.94±9.12 afterwards. Conclusions Eight-year program students of clinical medicine are quite interested in oncology, their learning and training outcomes have been further improved through the clinical training during internship.

Key words: oncology, eight-year medical doctor program, medical education, internship