Over the past three years, Sharon, age 38, has been intermittently receiving treatment for ovarian cancer. She was initially treated with carboplatin and paclitaxel and remained in remission for 20 months. She responded well to second-line therapy (carboplatin, gemcitabine, and bevacizumab), remaining on bevacizumab maintenance until she experienced a relapse eight months later.
The cacophony that echoes through the 24-hour news cycle can be heavy on an average day but overwhelming during a global health pandemic. That is why relying on a trusted voice is essential when attempting to understand how to deal with the voluminous information that bombards us through radio, television, emails, social media, and any other channels that deem themselves news outlets these days.
Oncology nurses use many tools to help our patients, but one of the most effective is our words. However, our terminology may be overwhelming to patients and feel like medical jargon. We also often use terms to describe how a patient is experiencing cancer, reporting adverse events, noncompliance, failing treatment, and palliative care, which can be confusing and misleading.
Cancer is one of the most expensive medical conditions to treat, and patients are expected to pay more and more out of pocket. Costs often lead to financial toxicity, defined as “distress or hardship arising from the financial burden of cancer treatment,” according to Darcy Burbage, DNP, RN, AOCN®, CBCN®, who discussed the topic in a session for the inaugural ONS Bridge™ virtual conference.
Patients who receive bone marrow transplantations require vigilance for complications such as graft versus host disease, opportunistic infections, and febrile neutropenia. During a presentation for the inaugural ONS Bridge™ virtual conference, Barbara E. Wenger, DNP, APRN, AOCNS®, CRNI, of UCHealth Metro, and Stephanie Armstrong, DNP, AGNP, NP-C, of Froedtert Hospital Clinical Cancer Center, described interventions to improve care quality in the BMT population.
As many as 50% of patients with cancer receive treatment with radiation therapy with the goal of cure or reducing pain and other symptoms. During a presentation at the inaugural ONS Bridge™ virtual conference, Sotiri Stathakis, PhD, DABR, offered nurses insights into the field from the perspective of a medical physicist.
Perhaps now more than ever, oncology nurses may need to be reminded to reflect on what brings them joy and meaning in their work—and how to find it again, if they’ve lost it along the way.
Bullying behaviors remain prevalent in nursing, resulting in turnover, poor work performance, and emotional trauma. During a session for the inaugural ONS Bridge™ virtual conference, Terri Townsend, MA, RN, CCRN-CMC, CMSRN, of Community Hospital Anderson, and Pamela Anderson, MSN, RN, CCRN, ANP-BC, of St. Vincent Medical Group, shed light on how to eliminate this pervasive issue.
The transition of chemotherapy and immunotherapy delivery from the acute care and clinic settings to the home setting has created a need for innovative strategies to keep patients safe. Today, with decreased face-to-face interactions, the need for those strategies and tools is even greater in a system reliant on multiple facilities and disciplines to collaborate care in a time when resources are sometimes scarce or minimal, Mary Jo Sarver, ARNP, AOCN®, CRNI, VA-BC, LNC, said in an on-demand session for the inaugural ONS Bridge™ virtual conference.
Resources that can be used by nurses and other oncology healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers to improve the care of patients with cancer, were recently launched by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) in its first set of five systematically reviewed clinical practice ONS Guidelines™ for managing cancer treatment-related side effects.