School of Nursing Oncology Offers Education to Best Care for Patients

School’s back for the summer, as Physicians’ Education Resource (PER)^® hosts the 2nd Annual School of Nursing Oncology™ to help provide the latest information on key oncology topics that can be readily applied to nursing clinical practice in various settings.

“Continuing education is really important for helping nurses give the best care to patients,” meeting co-chair Beth Eaby-Sandy, MSN, CRNP, OCN, said in a video interview. “There are so many drugs, from so many different categories, that have so many different toxicities. And, you know, it’s really hard to keep up on all of the education.”

At the meeting—held from August 3 through 4 at the Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel—faculty will discuss strategies to help nurses optimize patient management and provide beneficial insight in to the evolving treatment landscape. As a thoracic oncology nurse practitioner at the Abramson Cancer Center, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Eaby-Sandy noted how much treatments have changed in lung cancer over the years.

“When I think back 15 years ago, when I started as a nurse practitioner doing lung cancer, we truthfully had about 4 or 5 drugs that we used, that’s it. Everybody got paclitaxel and carboplatin,” she said. “I think that since I’ve been doing this, there has literally been 20 or 30 drugs that have been added to the arsenal. We didn’t even know about ALK mutations or EGFR mutations. So, there’s so much from just side effects, to the actual drugs, to what I’m actually looking for.”

In addition to Eaby-Sandy, the meeting will also be co-chaired by Grace Cherry, RN, MSN, NP, oncology nurse practitioner at the UCLA Melanoma Program, and Laura S. Wood, RN, MSN, OCN, renal cancer research coordinator at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute.

The meeting will include a mixture of didactic presentations, interactive discussion, and case-based learning opportunities—all described by PER^® as “a dynamic experience, allowing participants to engage with faculty as they share their perspectives and personal experiences on clinical challenges commonly encountered in nursing practice.”

Nurses will have the opportunity to earn a maximum of 14 RN contact hours.

According the program, at the conclusion of the meeting, participants should be better prepared to:

• Recognize and manage treatment-related toxicities and adverse events across cancers.
• Appraise clinical data for state-of-the-art supportive care strategies.
• Interact with expert faculty and colleagues.
• Integrate recent data into patient care.
• Counsel patients and caregivers on what to expect with immunotherapies.

“I just think the best way to keep up on the up-and-coming drugs and their toxicities is to keep educating ourselves through CE programs,” Eaby-Sandy said.

This activity is supported by educational grants from AstraZeneca, Celgene Corporation, and Helsinn Therapeutics (US) Inc.

To register, visit gotoper.com/go/SONO18BRO.