Part II: Interview with Ilija Curic, the Re-Elected Co-chair of the RTT Alliance
In March 2024, Ilija Curic was re-elected as co-chair of the ESTRO Radiation Therapists’ (RTT) Alliance, continuing his leadership alongside newly elected co-chair Claudio Votta. In this interview, Ilija reflects on the achievements of the alliance and shares his vision for its continued growth and impact on the RTT community.

How do you envision the RTT Alliance evolving over the next three years, and what key initiatives do you think will drive this evolution?

To join all RTT national societies in Europe to the alliance and to continue the expansion of the alliance outside the borders of Europe. We must make contact with national societies that are not members of the alliance. We must get more motivation for current members by enabling more benefits that are aligned with the ESTRO policy. Also, we must think about having different levels of membership. Finally, with the support of the ESTRO office, we have a plan to start a social media page and in this way use the benefits of this medium to meet our aims.

Can you discuss any specific challenges that RTTs currently face in Europe, and how the RTT Alliance aims to address these issues?

Education, the role of RTTs and the quick adoption of new approaches are constant challenges for the RTT Alliance, but I believe that in the future, the alliance will gain permission to send all national society members many documents and plenty of advice regarding improvement of RTTs’ knowledge, skills, roles and positions. The ESTRO School and workshops are always available for members and are very useful. Finally, in alliance online meetings we always allow time for discussion of problems, and we welcome suggestions from members on topics of interest for discussion at our meetings.
 

Networking and professional development are core benefits of RTT Alliance membership. Can you share some upcoming opportunities or events that members should look forward to?

I always like to emphasise alliance online meetings – they are the place for ideas and challenges. I hope that we will have one more online meeting before the end of the year. Of course, I would also like to highlight ESTRO activities like educational travel grants, the ESTRO RTT workshops that will take place between December 2024 and March 2025, and the ‘train the trainers’ workshop.

How do you plan to enhance the cross-fertilisation of learning and ideas among RTTs through the RTT Alliance platform?

One idea for the next three years is to explore possibilities of memoranda of understanding, including a three-year national congress endorsement by ESTRO. In future, there will be opportunities to join national society educational events, which will be visible to all alliance national society members. Also, the contacts for all national society representatives who are alliance members are available, and that resource could be a platform to enable stronger communication between members, opportunities to share experiences and perhaps for some kind of educational activities. Maybe the South and East Europe technology in radiation oncology group could be a good example to follow for cooperation and educational activities.
 

What strategies will you implement to ensure that the voices of all RTTs, regardless of their geographic location, are heard and represented within the alliance?

The best way is through our meetings and via direct contact over email. All interesting ideas or problems I will present to the RTT committee and the committee chair.
 

Ilija, what inspired you to seek re-election as an RTT Alliance representative?

All these years I have had great support from colleagues in the Serbian RTT society and from a lot of colleagues in the region. During my previous term, I had great support and cooperation with Ludwig Van den Berghe, Chair of the RTT Alliance from 2018 to 2024, but I saw that we had unfinished work. As I said earlier, our main aim was to expand the alliance to all EU countries. That was difficult in the period 2021 to 2024, mostly because of the pandemic, because people’s thoughts were not on alliance actions or activities.
Reflecting on your previous term, what were some of the most significant accomplishments or initiatives you were involved in? What do you hope to accomplish in your second term?

Ludwig and I worked together to increase the number of alliance national society members to 27.Personally, I consolidated my position in the ESTRO structure and remained a member of the ESTRO positioning and immobilisation focus group. I wish to end my tenure with a larger number of national societies in the alliance and an improved and more visible RTT Alliance.

Finally, how can individual RTTs and national societies get more involved in the RTT Alliance and contribute to its mission?

I suggest that national society members should have more than one representative at our meetings and change their roles from meeting to meeting. Also, it would be helpful if they explained to their members the results of meetings and what topics were discussed.