Podcast
The ONS Podcast
Hosted by Oncology Nursing Society · EN
Where ONS Voices Talk Cancer
Join oncology nurses on the Oncology Nursing Society's award-winning podcast as they sit down to discuss the topics important to nursing practice and treating patients with cancer.
ISSN 2998-2308
42episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Episode 369: Lung Cancer Survivorship Considerations for Nurses
Jun 27, 202500:35:56Tap to summarize“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 pubONSVoice@ons.org. 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
Transcribe →Episode 349: ONS 50th Anniversary: Evolution of Safe Handling and ONS’s Legacy in Developing Safe Handling Guidelines
Feb 7, 2025Tap to summarize“What I find most rewarding is connecting with nurses, who now understand the risks of exposure and are committed to minimizing their personal exposure. When I first started speaking about safe handling, there were a lot of nurses who were skeptical about the need for self-protection. I rarely see that now. Nurses are concerned for their own safety and more open to protective behaviors,” ONS member Martha Polovich, PhD, RN, AOCN®-Emeritus, adjunct professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, told Liz Rodriguez, DNP, RN, OCN®, CENP, ONS member and 50th anniversary committee member, during a conversation about the evolution of safe handling of hazardous drugs and ONS’s role in shaping safe handling policies. 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 February 7, 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 the evolution of safe handling guidelines. Episode Notes Complete this evaluation for free NCPD. ONS Podcast™ episodes: Episode 330: Stay Up to Date on Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs Episode 308: Hazardous Drugs and Hazardous Waste: Personal, Patient, and Environmental Safety ONS 50th Anniversary series ONS Voice articles: Hazardous Drug Surface Contamination Prevails, Despite More Diligent PPE NIOSH Releases Its 2024 List of Hazardous Drugs USP Answers Some Difficult Questions About Hazardous Drug Safety ONS books: Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Guidelines and Recommendations for Practice (second edition) Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs (fourth edition) ONS courses: ONS Fundamentals of Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy Administration™ ONS/ONCC Chemotherapy Immunotherapy Certificate™ Safe Handling Basics Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing articles: Hazardous Drug Contamination: Presence of Bathroom Contamination in an Ambulatory Cancer Center Oral Chemotherapy: An Evidence-Based Practice Change for Safe Handling of Patient Waste Huddle Card: Introduction to Safe Handling ONS Safe Handling Learning Library Joint ONS and Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) position statement: Ensuring Healthcare Worker Safety When Handling Hazardous Drugs National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: Managing Hazardous Drug Exposures: Information for Healthcare Settings American Society of Health-System Pharmacists Guidelines on Handling Hazardous Drugs USP FAQs 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 “PPE has always been recommended to reduce exposure because gloves and gowns provide physical barrier to protect against dermal absorption. But what we didn’t know back then was what gloves and gowns were made of mattered. So PVC gloves were often used just because they were readily available in all our clinical settings. Gowns were rarely worn for drug administration, even though they had been recommended since early on, and many considered gowns back then as optional because the wording in the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] guidelines said ‘recommended’ and not ‘required.’” TS 3:19 “Those early chemo gloves were a bit like wearing gloves you might use to clean your oven. They were so thick and got in the way of taking care of patients or mixing drugs or administering drugs. So the biggest change, I think, is that gloves that are currently available are very thin, and they provide the necessary protection for those who are handling hazardous drugs. We now have a gloves standard that requires permeation studies to demonstrate the protective ability of the gloves before they can be labeled for use with hazardous drugs.” TS 11:56 “ONS and HOPA developed a position statement on safe handling of hazardous drugs. … This came because our two organizations were unable to support some of the other proposed guidelines from another organization. So we got together, and through our cooperation, resulted in language about the importance of safe handling, about supporting safe handling for practitioners, pharmacists, and nurses. Also, I feel really good about this—our cooperation resulted in language about protecting the rights of staff who are trying to conceive or who are pregnant or who are breastfeeding to engage in alternative duty that doesn’t require them to handle hazardous drugs.” TS 17:12 “If there’s no worker safety, then who’s going to take care of the patients?” TS 21:52 “What I find most rewarding is connecting with nurses, who now understand the risks of exposure and are committed to minimizing their personal exposure. When I first started speaking about safe handling, and that’s going back a long way, there were a lot of nurses who were skeptical about the need for self-protection. They had been handling hazardous drugs for years and had no signs of ill effects, and so they assumed that we weren't overreacting with all of the recommendations. They saw the use of precautions and PPE as a speed bump in their busy day and also thought that was unnecessary. I rarely see that now. Nurses are concerned for their own safety and more open to protective behaviors.” TS 23:50
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