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Episode 392: ONS 50th Anniversary: Stories From the Other Side of Cancer

Release Date: 12/05/2025

Episode 414: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Lung Cancer

The ONS Podcast

“Skin reactions, such as redness, dryness, and just irritation of the skin, can occur. Since we’re irradiating the lung, we can also cause a cough, and that’s due to the inflammation from the radiation. Patients can also get esophagitis if the tumor that we’re treating is close to the midline of the chest near the esophagus. And probably the most common side effect that we see is fatigue,” ONS member Amy MacRostie, RN, OCN®, radiation oncology nurse at St. Charles Cancer Center in Bend, OR, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS,...

Episode 413: Intrarenal Administration for Upper Urothelial Tract Disease: The Oncology Nurse’s Role

The ONS Podcast

“We thought, from a nursing standpoint, ‘What is our goal for doing this?’ What we wanted was first, education of the patient. Can we successfully educate the patient to prepare them? Can we alleviate as much anxiety as possible so that they feel comfortable coming in and having this done? The second goal is to preserve kidney function throughout the treatment. To date, we’ve been successful with that. And the third goal is to complete treatment without infection,” ONS member Chris Amoroso, BSN, RN, OCN®, registered nurse at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, told Jaime...

Episode 412: Pharmacology 101: Cytokines

The ONS Podcast

“They are small, powerful little nuggets. They are actually small signaling proteins that our immune cells use to communicate. They really help regulate immune activation or inflammation and even the growth and survival of immune cells. When cytokines are used therapeutically in oncology, they help to stimulate immune cells such as T cells or natural killer cells to better recognize and attack cancer cells,” Maribel Pereiras, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, clinical pharmacy specialist at the John Theurer Cancer Center of Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, told Jaime Weimer, MSN,...

Episode 411: An Overview of Myelodysplastic Syndrome for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“Not every patient with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is going to progress and die. Only 10%–20% of them will evolve into acute myeloid leukemia. And not all of them need blood transfusions. Some present with low platelet count. It’s not just people who are anemic that have MDS—it’s different depending on what type of MDS they have. These are averages. We’re giving you statistics based on averages, and you’re an individual, so we want to treat you as an individual,” ONS member Sara Tinsley-Vance, PhD, APRN, AOCN®, nurse practitioner and quality-of-life researcher at Moffitt...

Episode 410: The Evidence for the Environment’s Impact on Cancer Outcomes

The ONS Podcast

“Cancer and environmental disasters in particular, but the worsening of our environment, are really things that are great equalizers. And we recognize that we’re all kind of in this world together. We can really face these issues on a more human level. I think always recognizing that if we look at something, we think, ‘Well, that doesn’t relate to me or that problem is it really isn’t my problem’—it sure is,” ONS member Margaret “Peggy” Rosenzweig, PhD, CRNP-C, AOCNP®, FAAN, ONS scholar-in-residence and distinguished service professor of nursing and Nancy Glunt Hoffman...

Episode 409: An Overview of Interventional Oncology for Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“Interventional oncology has really evolved into an important component of modern cancer care and is often described now as the fourth pillar alongside medical, surgical, and radiation oncology. The specialty now encompasses a broad spectrum of image-guided procedures that support from cancer diagnosis, treatment, to effectively managing symptoms that are caused by the disease. In other words, what we’re seeing is that across the continuum of care, IO is playing a vital role,” ONS member Evelyn P. Wempe, DNP, MBA, APRN, ACNP-BC, AOCNP®, CRN, NEA-BC, executive director for advanced...

Episode 408: Radiation Site-Specific Side Effects: Breast Cancer

The ONS Podcast

“A side effect patients might experience is lymphedema. This is an increased buildup of lymphatic fluid in the tissues, either in the breast or in the arm and hand of the affected side. It’s quite problematic for women. They might feel self-conscious. It might feel uncomfortable that the arm feels like it’s throbbing or heavy. Clothing may not fit quite right. So we’re always on the lookout for lymphedema,” Maria Fenton-Kerimian, APRN, AOCNP®, nurse practitioner at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice...

Episode 407: Pharmacology 101: CAR T-Cell Immunotherapy

The ONS Podcast

“You want to try to act quickly and be able to know what the pathways are for appropriate escalating when a patient is having symptoms that are reflective of cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or neurotoxicity. These toxicities are very manageable and treatable when recognized early. To summarize, choosing the right patient, knowing the toxicity profile for each product, and acting early is really what helps to prevent severe outcomes with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy,” Maribel Pereiras, PharmD, BCPS, BCOP, clinical pharmacy specialist at the John Theurer Cancer Center at...

Episode 406: Drug Resistance Biomarkers and Their Impact on Cancer Treatment Choices

The ONS Podcast

“Our goal of precision oncology has been to shift to tailored therapies that can help to improve treatment efficacy and ultimately improve patient outcomes. Resistance biomarker testing can help the care team to detect these genomic changes that the tumor may have acquired during therapy that makes the cells resistant to therapy. This information can be extremely helpful when we’re talking about making choices about second-line or subsequent-line therapy,” ONS member Danielle Fournier, DNP, APRN, AGPCNP-BC, AOCNP®, advanced practice RN at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...

Episode 405: Long-Term Multiple Myeloma Considerations for Oncology Nurses

The ONS Podcast

“The disease is increasingly managed as a chronic condition rather than a diagnosis with an immediate terminal outcome. Particularly, with earlier and more effective and sustained treatment options, we can make this disease a very chronic, long-term, livable condition. I want to make sure that patients are aware that this is not a death sentence. This is something that patients can live with for the long term,” Ann McNeill, RN, MSN, APN, nurse practitioner at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, NJ, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®,...

More Episodes

“Working as an oncology infusion nurse, being oncology certified, attending chapter meetings, going to ONS Congress^® has really taught me plenty. But being an oncology patient taught me way more. I know firsthand the fears ‘you have cancer’ brings. Then going through further testing, CT scans, MRIs, genetics, the whole preparation for surgery was something I never considered when I treated a breast cancer patient,” ONS member Catherine Parsons, RN, OCN^®, told Valerie Burger, MA, MS, RN, OCN^®, CPN, member of the ONS 50th anniversary planning committee, during a conversation about her experience being an oncology nurse and cancer survivor. Burger spoke with Parsons and ONS members Margaret Hopkins, MSN, RN, OCN^®, HNB-BC, and Afton Dickerson, MSN, AGACNP-BCP, CBCN^®, AOCNP^®, CGRA, about how cancer survivorship has shaped their careers as oncology nurses and personal lives.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0

Episode Notes

This episode is not eligible for NCPD.
ONS Podcast™ episodes:

ONS Voice articles:

ONS book: Oncology Nurse Navigation: Delivering Patient-Centered Care Across the Continuum (third edition)
ONS course: Essentials in Survivorship Care for the Advanced Practice Provider
ONS Nurse Well-Being Learning Library
ONS Huddle Cards:

Connie Henke Yarbro Oncology Nursing History Center

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 pubONSVoice@ons.org.

Highlights From This Episode

Parsons: “I thought I knew cancer. I thought I knew the treatment. I thought I knew the side effects. There’s so much I didn’t know. There’s so much behind the scenes before a patient comes and sits in my chair. The stuff that they go through I now can understand. It surprised me how much I didn’t know.” TS 11:39

Hopkins: “I had been thinking I’m going to be that hero, that I can go to work. I work at night, get 8 am radiation appointments, and go home and go to sleep and wake up and go to work again because everyone said, ‘Oh, it’s not that bad. Radiation will be okay. You can work.’ … But the real challenge for me was I didn’t know how to be a patient and a nurse at the same time. And my first radiation treatment, I go in there, and I change into the gown, and then I started cleaning up because I was getting treatment done at the hospital where I worked, and were taught if you see a mess, you clean it. So I was acting like a nurse. And I almost wanted to go help the other patients, but I couldn’t because I had to focus on healing.” TS 15:36

Dickerson: “What made the difference for me were the nurses who didn’t just treat my illness. They treated me as a whole person—my emotions, my feelings. They made me smile. They would hold my hand or just take a moment to really ask, ‘Hey, how are you?’ And those small, little gestures made me feel worthy, made me feel like a human. I always tell nurses it’s not just about the chemo; it’s about the connection. Sometimes your presence is the most healing thing that you can offer to your patient.” TS 30:52

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