Episode 354: Breast Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
Release Date: 03/14/2025
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“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, AOCN®, AGN-BC, FAAN, professor emeritus at Saint Louis University in Missouri, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about breast cancer survivorship.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by March 14, 2027. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
Learning outcome: Learners will report an increase in knowledge related to breast cancer survivorship.
Episode Notes
- Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.
- Previous ONS Podcast™ site-specific episodes:
- ONS Voice articles:
- ONS books:
- ONS course: Breast Cancer Bundle
- ONS Learning Libraries:
- ONS Guidelines™ and Symptom Interventions:
- Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing article: Survivorship Care: More Than Checking a Box
- Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing supplement: Survivorship Care
- American Cancer Society:
- Livestrong® Program at the YMCA
- National Comprehensive Cancer Network
- National Cancer Institute Breast Cancer—Patient Version
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Highlights From This Episode
“I think the biggest thing is to really communicate is that people are living with breast cancer for a long, long periods of time, and a lot of that with really good quality overall.” TS 4:07
“As a general rule, they’re going to be seen by the breast surgeon probably every four to six months for a while. After about five years, a lot of times people are ready to say, ‘Okay, annually is okay.’ And eventually they may let that drop off. But it also depends on did they have a mastectomy? Did they have breast conserving surgery? And then if they had reconstruction with an implant, how often do they see the plastic surgeon? Because they need to check integrity of the implant. So those schedules are really individualized.” TS 13:24
“When you think about long-term effects, I think you need to kind of think about that survivors can have both acute and long-term chronic effects. And a lot of that depends on the specifics of the treatment they had. I think as oncology nurses, we’re used to, ‘We give you this chemotherapy or this agent, and these are the side effects.’” TS 15:36
“The diet issues are huge. And I think we are slow to refer to the dietician, you know, you can get them a couple of consults and because you’re saying to them, ‘This is really important. We need you to lose weight or we need you to eat more of this.’ Ideally, fruits and vegetables are going to be about half of your plate. And what’s the difference between a whole grain and not, less processed foods, making sure that they’re getting enough protein. And then once again, really kind of making sure that they’re not taking a lot of supplements and extra stuff because we don’t really understand all that fully and it could be harmful.” TS 34:53
“Breast cancer is a long, long journey, and I think you should never underestimate the real difference that nurses can make. I think they can ask those tough questions. And I think ask the questions that are important to patients that patients may be reluctant to ask. I think giving patients permission to talk about those less-talked-about symptoms and acknowledge that those symptoms are real and that there are some strategies to mitigate those symptoms.” TS 42:28