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I found a card from him the other day and my breath hitched. Then I remembered how annoying I thought he was the first time I heard him.

As a healthcare provider, I had been warned about getting too close to my patients. They told me that it was unprofessional, it would cloud my judgment, it would lead to emotional burnout, and various other reasons. For my first year as a nurse, I took that advice to heart and kept my emotional distance while still doing my best to provide care to the whole patient. Then one night I met Jeff, and everything changed.

“The nurse is kind of the hub of a spoked wheel. You have your pharmacy and your provider all on the outside edge, but it’s the nurse that’s connecting all of these different support services together and being the main connection for the patient,” ONS member Elizabeth Bettencourt, RN, MSN, OCN^®, oral oncolytic nurse navigator at Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Sunnyvale, CA, and member of the Silicon Valley ONS Chapter, said. Bettencourt joined Stephanie Jardine, BSN, RN, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, for a discussion on how oncology nurses can support their patients in adherence to oral anticancer medications. The advertising messages in this episode are paid for by Breast Cancer Index.

A novel stem cell transplantation strategy reduces both the incidence and severity of chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in patients with acute leukemia, researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The investigational treatment removes naïve T cells from donor cells before transplanting into patients.

“Sometimes in our daily routine of taking care of patients, it’s more about looking at the treatment side effects. But look at those wide array of symptoms that can present with an oncologic emergency. They will kind of sneak up on you, and as an oncology nurse, we all need to be educated about them,” ONS member Diane Cope, PhD, APRN, BC, AOCNP^®, director of nursing and oncology nurse practitioner at Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute in Fort Myers told Stephanie Jardine, BSN, RN, oncology clinical specialist at ONS. During this episode, Cope explained the clinical manifestations associated with syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone (SIADH) and its medical and nursing interventions. The episode is part of a series about oncologic emergencies; the previous episodes are linked below. You can also earn free NCPD contact hours by completing the evaluation linked below.

The 2022 virtual ONS Bridge™ conference returns this fall on September 13 and 15! ONS Bridge is where oncology nurses, educators, and leaders can learn about the latest and greatest in the oncology setting! This year’s conference offers up to 20 nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) contact hours in a mix of live and on-demand sessions, all of which can be attended in front of your computer screen. 

What is it like to govern a professional association that serves more than 100,000 oncology nurses? ONS President Jeannine Brant, PhD, APRN-CNS, AOCN^®, FAAN, and Directors-at-Large Val Burger, MA, MS, RN, OCN^®, CPN, and Teresa Knoop, MSN, RN, AOCN^®, reflect on their roles in the Board’s executive committee, how a diverse Board supports a diverse membership, and how you can get involved in ONS leadership.

When it comes to oncologic emergencies, early identification and intervention achieve the best outcomes, but some emergencies are harder to recognize. “Oncology nurses are often the first to pick up on important symptoms of serious complications,” Laura Zitella, MS, RN, ACNP-BC, AOCN^®, nurse practitioner at the University of California, San Francisco, said. Zitella joined Stephanie Jardine, BSN, RN, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, to talk about recognizing less common complications seen in patients with cancer, such as adrenal crisis, pulmonary embolism, and malignant small bowel obstructions.

“Once patients come out on the other side, nursing care involves understanding how to triage their disease: If they call you with concerns, how would you address those concerns? How would you find out if there’s something going on? Just given how acute the onset is, a lot of these patients have some post-traumatic stress disorder, so there’s a lot of worried-well conversations, and in outpatients you need to figure out how to coordinate future care given their history of thrombotic thrombocytopenia purpura (TTP),” ONS member Amanda Weatherford, MSN, RN, OCN^®, clinical nurse coordinator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BC, AOCNS^®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS in a conversation about nursing considerations to manage TTP.