Episode 360: An Overview of Brain Malignancies for Oncology Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“Everyone’s brain is extremely heterogenic, so it’s different. You can put five of us in a room; we can all have the same diagnosis of a [glioblastoma multiforme], but all of ours can be different. They’re highly aggressive biologically. It’s a small area in a hard shell. So trying to get through the blood–brain barrier is different. There’s a lot of areas of hypoxia in the brain. There’s a lot of pressure there. The microbiology is very different—it’s a cold environment versus a hot environment—and then the pathways are just different,” Lori Cappello, MSN, APN-C,...
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Episode 359: Lung Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities
The ONS Podcast
Episode 359: Lung Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities “I was actually speaking to a primary care audience back a few weeks ago, and we were talking about lung cancer screening. And they said, ‘Our patients, they don’t want to do it.’ And I said, ‘Do you remind them that lung cancer is curable?’ Because everybody thinks it is a death sentence. But when you’re talking about screening a patient, I think it’s really important to say, ‘Listen, if we find this early, stage I or stage II, our chances of curing this and it never coming back again is upwards of 60%...
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Episode 358: Pharmacology 101: KRAS Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
“It’s been known for quite a while that [KRAS] is a mutation that leads to cancer development, but for really over four decades, researchers couldn’t figure out a way to target it. And so, it was often considered something that was undruggable. But all of this changed recently. So about four years ago, in 2021, we had the approval of the first KRAS inhibitor. So it’s specifically a KRAS G12C inhibitor known as sotorasib,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in Pittsburgh, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN,...
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Episode 357: ONS 50th Anniversary: The Evolution of Cancer Treatment: Stories From the Front Lines
The ONS Podcast
“There have been many changes since the ’70s that have shaped the nurse’s role in administering chemo, and in supporting patients. The major change early on was the transition from that of nurses mixing chemo to that of pharmacists. Regulatory agencies like NIOSH and OSHA defined chemotherapy as hazardous drugs, and professional organizations became involved, leading to the publication of the joint ASCO and ONS Standards of Safe Handling,” ONS member Scarlott Mueller, MPH, RN, FAAN, secretary of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Board and member of the Oncology Nursing...
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Episode 356: A Nurse’s Guide to the 2024 NIOSH List of Hazardous Drugs
The ONS Podcast
“And so you have different kinds of hazards with the drugs that you’re using. That means that in the past, when a lot of oncology drugs, antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer would have been added, you may see that a lot of oncology drugs either weren’t added or they’re added in a different place on the list than they were in the past. That’s due to some of the restructuring of the list we’ll probably talk about later,” Jerald L. Ovesen, PhD, pharmacologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,...
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Episode 355: Pharmacology 101: Hedgehog Pathway Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
“I genuinely think nurses and pharmacists need to know why these medicines are called hedgehog inhibitors so that we can, in fact, effectively educate our patients. Just because to date, this class has the weirdest name I’ve encountered, and I almost expect at this point that my patients are going to ask me about it. I think that we need to be informed that, just on, where do these names come from, why is it called this, and does it matter to my patient?” Andrew Ruplin, PharmD, clinical oncology pharmacist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN,...
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Episode 354: Breast Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“You can give someone a survivorship care plan, but just giving them doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen. Maybe there’s no information about family history. Or maybe there’s information and there’s quite a bit of family history, but there’s nothing that says, ‘Oh, they were ever had genetic testing,’ or ‘Oh, they were ever referred.’ So the intent is so good because it’s to really take that time out when they’re through with active treatment and, you know, try to help give the patient some guidance as to what to expect down the line,” Suzanne Mahon, DNS, RN,...
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Episode 353: ONS 50th Anniversary: Evolution of Oncology Nursing Certification
The ONS Podcast
“The response was, in my opinion, sort of overwhelmingly positive. I think all of us old-timers who were at ONS Congress® in 1986 remember those 1,600 nurses waiting in line to enter the ballroom to take that inaugural exam. It takes a while to check in 1,600 people. They kind of all filled up the lobby outside of the ballroom, and then they spilled over down into the escalator, and the escalators had to be turned off,” Cyndi Miller-Murphy, MSN, FAAN, CAE, first executive director of the Oncology Nursing Certification Corporation (ONCC), told Clara Beaver, DNP, RN, AOCNS®, ACNS-BC, ONS...
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Episode 352: Pharmacology 101: Epigenetics
The ONS Podcast
“Now, what we found is that epigenetics is actually heritable and it’s actually reversible. And we can now manipulate these principles with pharmacotherapy drugs,” Eric Zack, RN, OCN®, BMTCN®, clinical assistant professor at Loyola College Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing in Chicago, IL, and RN3 at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about the epigenetics drug class. Music Credit: “” by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by...
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Episode 351: What It’s Like to Develop Symptom Intervention Resources
The ONS Podcast
“It is very much a collaborative group process. There are group meetings where we come to consensus on our different ratings. There’s so much support from ONS staff, even amongst our different groups, even when you’re assigned to one peer reviewer. Let’s say you go on vacation, sometimes we’re paired with other people, too. So there is some flexibility in the opportunity as well,” Holly Tenaglia, DNP, APRN, AGCNS-BC, OCN®, lecturer at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a...
info_outline“Don’t be afraid of applying, even if you’ve never planned a conference before, and you think, ‘Well, I have no idea what I’m doing.’ You probably know more than you think you do. You probably have more connections than you think you do, and it is such a worthwhile experience,” Colleen Erb, MSN, CRNP, ACNP-BC, AOCNP®, hematology and oncology nurse practitioner at Jefferson Health Asplundh Cancer Pavilion in Willow Grove, PA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, BMTCN®, conferences oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about serving on a planning committee for an ONS conference.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod Episode Notes
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
Episode Notes
- This episode is not eligible for NCPD contact hours.
- Oncology Nursing Podcast™ episodes:
- ONS Voice articles:
- What Brings You Value in ONS? You Can Thank a Volunteer for That
- The Power of Connection in Oncology Nursing
- Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: What Is It Like to Chair the ONS Bridge™ Content Planning Team?
- ONS Volunteer Opportunities
- ONS Congress
- ONS Evidence-Based Practice Learning Library
To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.
To find resources for creating an Oncology Nursing Podcast Club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library.
To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email [email protected].
Highlights From This Episode
“I saw a link on the ONS website looking for volunteer opportunities and applied, not thinking that I’d actually get chosen because I had never done anything like this before. I had spoken at conferences, but I had never been part of the planning committee. The application [had] some open-ended questions about what your expertise is and where your interests lie. … And then I got a phone call from the planning chair for that year, and we talked a little bit more in depth about the questions that were on the application, and my interests, and how I thought I would fit on the team.” TS 2:05
“The main part [of the work] was topic selection and then speaker selection once we narrowed down the topics. I feel like there was a lot of brainstorming and group effort to both of those things. You don’t have to individually have an exact topic or an exact speaker. There was a lot of ‘I think this general broad topic would be good,’ and then we narrowed it down as a group to something that would fit into a 45-minute presentation.” TS 4:30
“We talked about interventional radiology and how it seemed like it was taking on much more of a bigger role in oncology and how that could fit into the conference and whether we wanted to have a specific topic or an overview of the things that interventional radiology can offer for oncology patients. And we ended up doing kind of like a 101 topic on that one, because it was a newer topic that people were kind of interested in just hearing, like, ‘Hey, what do you guys do for cancer patients?’” TS 8:44
“I learned a lot about the backstage process of conferences. I had spoken before, but seeing the other side of it was a whole different picture—and all the work that goes into it—and I really learned a lot about picking the topics and how do we find the best information and the best sort of new themes to present to every time.” TS 12:04
“Just do it. Don’t be afraid of applying, even if you’ve never planned a conference before, and you think, ‘Well, I have no idea what I’m doing.’ You probably know more than you think you do. You probably have more connections than you think you do, and it is such a worthwhile experience. And you learn so much about yourself and about the other people on the team. And the information that you’re presenting just is huge for a lot of people. So if you’re even thinking about it, just fill out the application.” TS 14:06