As New Roles Emerge, APRNs Have More Opportunities in Cancer Care Than Ever Before
Oncology advanced practice RN (APRNs) are in an ideal position to put their leadership, clinical practice, critical thinking, and organization management expertise to use in new ways to advance and add value to cancer care. During her April 20, 2021, session at the 46th Annual ONS Congress™, Rosanne Casal, DNP, APN-BC, AOCNP®, from University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, OH, shared three examples: benign hematology, ambulatory acute care, and bone marrow biopsy.
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FDA Makes Strides in Premarket Review of Tobacco Product Applications
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Center for Tobacco Products has aggressively fought to obtain tighter tobacco product regulations to protect adolescent lungs. One of those ways is through premarket review, where e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products that were available as of August 8, 2016, were required to submitted applications to FDA for approval by Sept. 9, 2020.
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A Free Lunch Doesn’t Exist: How I Became an ONS Health Policy Advocate
For a long time, like so many other nurses, I thought of myself as the “regular kind” of advocate for my patients, speaking out for their needs on an individual basis at the institutional level while supporting them as they navigate a cancer diagnosis. But I’ve more recently discovered an even more empowering role: I’m now a health policy advocate.
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The Case of the Transgender Considerations for Cancer Screening
Sally, a nurse practitioner in a cancer survivorship clinic, is preparing to discuss screening and surveillance guidelines with Jonah, a 32-year-old survivor of Hodgkin lymphoma. Sally reviews Jonah’s patient history form and notes that Jonah uses he and him pronouns. His gender identity is male and sex assigned at birth was female. Jonah’s surgical history includes gender-affirming surgery on chest tissue (also known as top surgery), and his current medications include supplemental testosterone. Jonah also specifies that he is transmasculine—an umbrella term used to indicate that Jonah feels a connection with masculinity.
ONS Members See Beyond Barriers and Understand Benefits of Guidelines
I am a clinician in my heart and soul. I was an ONS charter member and one of the first nurse practitioners (NPs) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY, before any NP laws were in place and before colony-stimulating factors. The inability to prevent death secondary to chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) and febrile neutropenia (FN) haunted me and led me to conduct several funded studies.
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Nurse Appointed as Acting U.S. Surgeon General
Three nurses serve in the U.S. Congress, and the profession briefly added one more federal representation at the agency level as well. President Joe Biden appointed Rear Admiral Susan Orsega, MSN, RN, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN, a nurse practitioner, as acting surgeon general while Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBH, who served as former president Barack Obama’s surgeon general, was waiting for Senate confirmation. The position is often referred to as the “nation’s doctor,” although Orsega was the third nurse to hold the title before Murthy assumed his current post.
FDA Approves Nivolumab in Combination With Chemotherapy for Metastatic Gastric Cancer and Esophageal Adenocarcinoma
On April 16, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nivolumab (Opdivo®) in combination with fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for advanced or metastatic gastric cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and esophageal adenocarcinoma.
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Meet Your ONS Leader: Teresa Knoop
Get to know Teresa Knoop, MSN, RN, AOCN®, ONS director-at-large from 2020–2023, an assistant director in the clinical trials office at Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center in Brentwood, TN.
Surveys Show PPE Is Still in Short Supply
A perhaps unexpected phenomenon the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic created around the world was countless supply shortages. Most at worst were inconvenient (e.g., yeast shortages from pandemic breadmaking) or humorous (e.g., toilet paper memes), but one that oncology nurses experienced far too close to home was downright deadly: lack of proper personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies for handling hazardous drugs.
Betty Ferrell Receives 2021 ONS Lifetime Achievement Award
With nearly half a century of outstanding contributions to the field of oncology nursing, ONS member Betty Ferrell, PhD, MA, CHPN, FAAN, FPCN, was selected by the ONS Board of Directors to receive the Society’s 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award. Ferrell is the director of the division of nursing research and education at City of Hope in Duarte, CA, principal investigator of the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) project, and a world-renowned author and lecturer.