Episode 427: Pharmacology 101: Resistance Pathways
The ONS Podcast
“A good way of thinking about this is this is the survival of the fittest clone. There could be a portion of a cancer that naturally has some resistance or ability to survive a particular drug. And over time, as the other cells around it are dying off, that particular clone is able to replicate and continue to survive in the face of that drug therapy and eventually take over as being the fittest clone. At that point, we’re often seeing disease progression,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in Pittsburgh,...
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Episode 426: Tools to Support Patients and Nurses Through Medical Trauma in Oncology
The ONS Podcast
“When people with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] get quite avoidant—and that can be expressed in so many different ways—the implications can be really profound. I think an important invitation to oncologists and oncology nurses and primary care providers who care for people battling cancer is let’s explore what's underneath these avoidant behaviors. Is it a very practical thing? Or is it that underneath this avoidant behavior is really profound fear?” James C. Jackson, PsyD, research professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN, told Lenise Taylor, MN,...
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Episode 425: How AI Can Help Healthcare Organizations Improve the Cancer Experience
The ONS Podcast
“In oncology specifically, where care is complex, artificial intelligence (AI) can really synthesize large volumes of clinical information, flag risks such as treatment complications, and support adherence to evidence-based pathways. For nurses specifically, this enables them more time for direct patient care, clinical judgment, and care coordination, and really practice to the top of their license while reducing repetitive time and administrative tasks,” Jenn Frith, DNP, RN, OCN®, NE-BC, associate vice president of clinical operations at Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, NC, told Jaime...
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Episode 424: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Cancers of the Pelvis
The ONS Podcast
“Think about what organs lie in the radiation field, and anything that lies in that radiation field is likely going to have some potential temporary—hopefully temporary—side effects. If you think about the pelvis, the things that live in there are the bladder, urethra, some bowel, rectum, reproductive organs, skin, some lymph nodes. And so, all of those things could potentially have associated side effects,” ONS member Kayla Kafka-Peterson, BSN, RN, ROCN™, nurse navigator and leader in the brachytherapy and peri-anesthesia programs at UCLA Health, in Los Angeles, CA, told Lenise...
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Episode 423: Pharmacology 101: Interaction Pathways
The ONS Podcast
“When we think of drug interactions, specifically, the National Cancer Institute actually defines this as a change in the way a drug acts in the body when taken with certain other drugs, herbals, or foods or when taken with certain medical conditions. Drug interactions may cause the drug to either be more or less effective or cause effects on the body that are not expected,” Carissa Ganihong, PharmD, BCOP, oncology and bone marrow transplantation clinical pharmacist at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology...
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Episode 422: An Overview of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia for Oncology Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“What I appreciate about our patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic leukemia is the consideration that they receive a cancer diagnosis, and the best thing for them to do is actually nothing. There is a large population of patients that we don’t recommend any type of treatment. We recommend that they establish care with an oncologist and that they have a relationship with those care teams,” ONS member Caitilin Murphy, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, chief nurse practitioner at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®,...
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Episode 421: Medical Trauma in Oncology
The ONS Podcast
“There are a huge array of medical dynamics that people endure, and when they leave a lasting impact, a word that we don’t use widely enough is the word ‘trauma.’ There’s an entire category of phenomena in the medical arena that are, in fact, traumatic. One way we know that these experiences are traumatic is that we know that huge portions of people who experience things like cancer do indeed develop problems like [post-traumatic stress disorder],” James C. Jackson, PsyD, research professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN,...
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Episode 420: Long-Term Myelodysplastic Syndrome Considerations for Oncology Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“We typically think of the disease progressing for our higher-risk patients because many of them already start with increased blasts or a lot of dysplasia. And they have these chromosomal variants that make them prone to evolving into acute myeloid leukemia (AML). With them, we can anticipate that they are going to progress to AML. And that’s what we’re trying to prevent. It’s kind of like a biologic evolution and not a switch,” ONS member Sara Tinsley-Vance, PhD, APRN, AOCN®, nurse practitioner and quality-of-life researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL, told Lenise...
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Episode 419: Pharmacology 101: Immunomodulators
The ONS Podcast
“Until immunomodulators, patients [with myeloma] did not have a great overall survival rate. But when we introduced lenalidomide, we started seeing our patients have life expectancies between five and seven years—which was unheard of prior to these immunomodulators going forward. I think it’s promising and allows patients to have quality of life versus therapy of life,” ONS member Daniel Verina, DNP, RN, ACNP-BC, nurse practitioner for the multiple myeloma program at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, NY, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, TCTCN™, oncology clinical specialist...
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Episode 418: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Colorectal Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“Radiation therapy is often extremely well tolerated in colorectal cancer. Technology has really changed things. But location of the tumor can affect side effects, such as radiation dermatitis. If a patient has a low-lying tumor, if it’s less than six centimeters from the anal verge, the patient is likely to have some skin reaction. It’s good to be proactive if that’s the case,” ONS member Lorraine Drapek, DNP, FNP-BC, AOCNP®, nurse practitioner in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®,...
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 pubONSVoice@ons.org.
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