Episode 369: Lung Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
Release Date: 06/27/2025
Episode 369: Lung Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“Just remember that these patients, these are human beings who had lung cancer. It’s a scary disease. And we don’t want to just say, ‘Oh, well, that’s a horrible disease. They probably won’t do well.’ These patients are living longer. Our treatments are better. And so no matter who they are, they have every chance of surviving long term for this,” ONS member Beth Sandy, MSN, CRNP, thoracic medical oncology nurse practitioner at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology...
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Episode 368: Best Practices for Challenging Patient Conversations in Metastatic Breast Cancer
The ONS Podcast
“That’s what metastatic breast cancer looks like now—patients can live an extended period of time. And sometimes I think we forget to cheer for stable disease. I tell patients they can live with weeds in their garden; they just can’t let the weeds take over their garden. And today we don’t have a cure. We live in a rapidly changing time in oncology, and so there’s just so much hope right now that we can offer patients,” ONS member Kristi Orbaugh, MSN, NP, AOCN®, AOCNP®, nurse practitioner at Community Hospital North Cancer Center in Indianapolis, IN, told Jaime Weimer, MSN,...
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Episode 367: Pharmacology 101: PARP Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
Episode 367: Pharmacology 101: PARP Inhibitors “We know that in cells that are proliferating very quickly, including cancer cells, single-strand DNA breaks are very common. When that happens, these breaks are often repaired by the PARP enzyme, and the cells can continue their replication process. If we block PARP, that repair cannot happen. So in blocking that, these single-strand breaks then lead to double-strand breaks, which ultimately is leading to cell apoptosis,” Danielle Roman, PharmD, BCOP, manager of clinical pharmacy services at the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute in...
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Episode 366: ONS 50th Anniversary: Generations of Nurses Keep Oncology in the Family
The ONS Podcast
“[My mom] would always be very inspirational whenever I would see her studying so long. And when she finally got to be a nurse, I always admired her vocation and compassion with her patients. She would always go above and beyond for all of her patients. I also got inspired a lot by my brother, as well, just seeing how passionate he was for caring for his patients for the families as well, and helping them deal with the any grief or loss that they were experiencing, Carolina Rios, MSN, RN, CPhT, told Valerie Burger, RN, MA, MS, OCN®, CPN, member of the ONS 50th anniversary planning...
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Episode 365: Radiation-Associated Secondary Cancers
The ONS Podcast
“From a radiation standpoint, the biggest thing we’re looking at is the treatment site, the dosage, and the way the radiation has been delivered. There are different ways that we can focus radiation using methods such as intensity-modulated radiotherapy, volumetric modulated arc therapy, flattening radiation beams, and proton beam therapy to try to help minimize radiation exposure to healthy tissues to minimize patient risk for secondary cancers,” ONS member Andrea Matsumoto, DNP, AGACNP-BC, AOCNP®, radiation oncology nurse practitioner at Henry Ford Health in Detroit, MI, told Jaime...
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Episode 364: How to Prepare for a Nursing Examination
The ONS Podcast
“Everyone will probably say this, but it is so true. Do not cram the night before the exam. The most important thing the night before the exam is to get a good night’s sleep. You might be so nervous. You’re like, ‘I can get any new information that matters right before the exam,’ but you can’t. Any information that you know you will have gotten in the time that you spent studying already. Really, you have to trust yourself,” Talia Lapidus, BSN, RN, professional staff nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at UPMC in Pittsburgh, PA, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS,...
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Episode 363: Lung Cancer Treatment Considerations for Nurses
The ONS Podcast
“A lot of other disease sites, they have some targeted therapies, they have some immunotherapies [IO]. In lung cancer, we have it all. We have chemo. We have IO. We have targeted therapies. We have bispecific T-cell engagers. We have orals, IVs. I think it’s just so important now that, particularly for lung cancer, you have to be well versed on all of these,” ONS member Beth Sandy, MSN, CRNP, thoracic medical oncology nurse practitioner at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology...
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Episode 362: Pharmacology 101: MET Inhibitors
The ONS Podcast
“The signaling and that binding of the MET and the HGF help, in a downstream way, lead to cell proliferation, cell motility, survival, angiogenesis, and also invasion—so all of those key cancer hallmarks. And because of it being on an epithelial cell, it’s a really good marker because it’s found in many, many different types of cancers, so it makes it what we call kind of a nice actionable mutation,” ONS member Marianne Davies, DNP, ACNP, AOCNP®, FAAN, senior oncology nurse practitioner at Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center in New Haven, CT, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS,...
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Episode 361: ONS 50th Anniversary: The Value of ONS Membership in Advancing the Oncology Nursing Profession
The ONS Podcast
“We spent time today discussing all the ways that owners can have a positive impact on career growth, whether you’re a bedside nurse or just in teaching, research, hospital leadership. More than career growth, I see ONS as kind of a barrier to burnout and a catalyst for professional self-care. I think that no matter what aspect of oncology care you’re involved in, it is a difficult and complex specialty. And I think with that can come a lot of challenges and tough days, and ONS brings a sense of community to that and, specifically, a community that is pushing cancer care forward,”...
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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,...
info_outline“Just remember that these patients, these are human beings who had lung cancer. It’s a scary disease. And we don’t want to just say, ‘Oh, well, that’s a horrible disease. They probably won’t do well.’ These patients are living longer. Our treatments are better. And so no matter who they are, they have every chance of surviving long term for this,” ONS member Beth Sandy, MSN, CRNP, thoracic medical oncology nurse practitioner at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a conversation about lung cancer survivorship.
Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod
Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0
Earn 0.5 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at courses.ons.org by June 27, 2026. 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 lung cancer survivorship.
Episode Notes
- Complete this evaluation for free NCPD.
- ONS Podcast™ episodes:
- Episode 363: Lung Cancer Treatment Considerations for Nurses
- Episode 359: Lung Cancer Screening, Early Detection, and Disparities
- ONS Voice articles:
- Nursing Considerations for Lung Cancer Survivorship Care
- Nurse-Led Survivorship Programs: Expert Advice to Help You Build Your Institution’s Resources
- Oncology Nursing Forum articles:
- Empowering Lung Cancer Survivors in Post-Treatment Survivorship Care Using Participatory Action Research
- A Qualitative Cultural Sensitivity Assessment of the Breathe Easier Mobile Application for Lung Cancer Survivors and Their Families
- Exploring Stigma Among Lung Cancer Survivors: A Scoping Literature Review
- ONS Survivorship Care Plan Huddle Card
- ONS Survivorship Learning Library
To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.
To find resources for creating an ONS 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
“For patients with stage I disease, they have a pretty good chance of getting to that five-year mark, somewhere probably in the 70%–80% range, depending on if you're stage IA or IB. Then it starts to drop obviously if you go up stages with patients.” TS 6:36
“Our radiation oncologists … and the dosimetrists in radiation oncology do a great job trying to line those beams up to minimize toxicity to those other vital organs. But we just can’t always do that. You may see long-term fibrotic changes within the lungs. You could see cardiac damage over time. You can see esophagitis or [gastrointestinal] toxicity, particularly in the esophagus over time, post-radiation. And just the fact of having disease or cancer in the lungs, you can have breathing problems and pulmonary issues long term.” TS 10:37
“Part of survivorship in lung cancer is smoking and smoking cessation. I know it can be hard for people to quit, even people who had curative-intent treatment for their lung cancer—and so keeping up with smoking cessation. And that can be hard again if you don’t have access to a smoking cessation specialty or if you live with other people who smoke and don't have really access to programs to help you quit and help you stay quitting.” TS 17:26
“I should talk about autoimmune diseases as part of immunotherapy. We give immunotherapy now in the curative setting preoperatively, postoperatively, post-chemoradiation, so they may get a year or so of immunotherapy. They may develop some sort of autoimmune toxicity from that. Usually that will go away once we stop the immunotherapy. But I’ve seen some things persist over time. That can go anywhere from like mild eczema that came about to things like more serious, like maybe lupus or scleroderma that may have developed as part of your immunotherapy. And we may stop the immunotherapy, but that may linger on.” TS 25:02