Post-Conference Session Summaries

Opening Ceremony

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

To set the stage for the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) 32nd Annual Congress, the opening ceremony combined music and laughter with important ONS news and touching personal stories about the impact of oncology nursing.

A celebratory procession introduced the ONS Board of Directors, led by President Georgia M. Decker, MS, RN, CS-ANP, AOCN^®. Following the Board were nurses representing 21 countries, many proudly waving flags. Next entered members of 10 new ONS chapters and members of the hosting chapters, who danced into the room wearing feather boas and Elvis-inspired sideburns and glasses, led by an Elvis impersonator and the song “Viva Las Vegas.”

“Elvis, you're a tough act to follow,” Decker said as she welcomed more than 6,000 Congress attendees and thanked the session's sponsor, Hana Biosciences.

Nellee H. Fine, RN, BSN, MA, AOCN^®, chair of the Congress Team, then recognized the Congress team, ONS staff, and the colleagues who missed Congress to care for patients. “Oncology nursing is one of the most demanding arenas of health care,” she said. “So renew, reconnect, and recommit yourselves to ONS, oncology nursing, and our exceptional cancer patients. Do not doubt the impact you have on them and their families.”

Decker provided an update of ONS news. She explained ONS's involvement in the Coalition for Patients' Rights, a multidisciplinary group opposing efforts of physicians' groups to limit other healthcare professionals' scope of practice. She encouraged ONS members to get involved in healthcare policy by joining ONStat, a service that alerts nurses when legislation is coming before policy-makers. Decker said she hopes to increase ONStat's membership from 4,000 to 5,000 by year's end. She also highlighted ONS's new Putting Evidence Into Practice resource cards, in addition to ONS's new logo, which incorporates Florence Nightingale's coxcomb, an early symbol of nursing-sensitive patient outcomes.

The 2007 Congress was the first with new Chief Executive Officer Paula Rieger, RN, MSN, AOCN^®, FAAN. Rieger assured members that she is working to make ONS the Continental Airlines of professional associations. That means anticipating member needs, seeking to make their interactions with ONS the best they can be, and leveraging technology to help prepare nurses for the transformation of cancer care, she said.

ONS Foundation President Kevin Sowers, RN, MSN, told the audience that the foundation has provided $19 million in resources since 1982. To illustrate the importance of the financial support, three patients personally introduced and thanked one nurse each who benefited from Foundation support and helped them navigate the cancer journey.

Sowers then made the first public announcement of the Silver Anniversary Campaign, which aims to build an endowment of $10 million for research, education, and leadership for oncology nursing. “If we are to influence and support the future of oncology nursing, we must do this together. You and colleagues like you need to be visible investors in our efforts to inspire others to step forward with major gifts,” Sowers said.

Keynote speaker Joe Caruso then took the stage. The speaker, consultant, and author helps individuals and groups rethink who they are and how they process reality—and then discover how to think and behave differently.

“As many times as I've done this with individuals and organizations around the world, it pales in comparison to the number of times you have. You meet individuals who need to change the way they think, to see themselves differently, to take a reality that they never thought they might face and define it in a way that they might find power in it rather than be a victim to it. … That's the essence of the work you do.”

At the age of 18, Caruso was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which had metastasized. Doctors said the cancer was incurable and asked him to consider a clinical trial of a chemotherapy protocol and radical surgery. While on the trial, Caruso met an oncology nurse who made him rethink himself and his reality. He stopped assuming he was going to die and started studying how people understand and process reality.

After his cancer was cured, those studies led to his career and a book, The Power of Losing Control . “When we stop wasting our energy on the things we can't control, we can bring it to the things we can control and only then can we find our real power.” The first chapter is about the oncology nurse who helped him during that clinical trial, and he invited that nurse on stage to celebrate the way she changed his life—and others' lives through him.