Episode 309: What Brings You to ONS Congress®?

“It was really the ability to be able to connect with many individuals from my profession. Reflecting on what initially drew me to ONS Congress, I can’t help but reminisce about my first time attending in 2002. I was going down memory lane the other day and found some pictures from my first time attending. As I reflected, I could not help but feel immensely grateful for the support and education I received as a novice nurse during that time from attending Congress,” Jessica MacIntyre, DNP, MBA, APRN, AOCNP^®, 2024–2026 ONS president, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS^®, BMTCN^®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about ONS Congress. Taylor spoke with several 2024 ONS Congress attendees, asking the question “What brought you to ONS Congress?” Listen to their stories and learn how the conference has affected their careers in this special episode.

Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 

Episode Notes 

• Information on submitting an abstract to ONS Congress
• Oncology Nursing Foundation ONS Congress Scholarships
• Oncology Nursing Podcast episodes:
  • Episode 258: ONS Through the Ages: Stories From the Early Days With Cindi Cantril and George Hill
  • Episode 191: Explore Orientation Opportunities for New-to-Practice Nurses
  • Episode 160: Build Innovative Staff Education Tools and Resources
• ONS Voice articles:
  • Our Unified Voices Can Improve Cancer Survivorship Care
  • Personalized Patient Education: Ensure Effective, Inclusive, and Equitable Patient Education With These Five Strategies
• ONS Congress presentations from episode guests
  • The Nurse as an Effective Educator: Facilitating Patient-Centered Learning (Beau Amaya)
  • Powerful Outcomes From Nurse and Patient Policy Advocacy (Gilanie De Castro)
  • Back to Basics: Utilizing Huddles to Emphasize Standard Care and Maintenance of Central Venous Catheters in an Effort to Reduce CLABSI (Erin Hillmon)
  • Enhancing Triage Precision: Nurse Navigation's Impact on a Lymphedema Program (Jessica MacIntyre)
  • Implementing a Graduate Nurse Residency Program (Leah Scaramuzzo)

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

“What I want to accomplish is really to contribute significantly to an organization that has contributed so greatly to me. And until you go to Congress, you don’t fully realize the ripple effect that ONS has on the field of oncology nursing. They really are a cornerstone to our profession. So when I volunteer with ONS, I feel like I’m serving the oncology nursing community as a whole, and I’m so grateful to get to do that on a national level.” (Stacey Clements, BSN, RN) TS 3:35

“What is bringing me to Congress is to talk about patient education, health literacy, ways that we can improve the patient experience and help them understanding. And I think this is such an important topic because it’s what we do at the core of nursing. We really teach patients and their caregivers how to take care of themselves. And sometimes we forget that it’s not just a checklist to get the education done. It’s really learning what the patient needs, what they need to think about—some consideration about what may be affecting the way that they’re retaining information. Then hopefully I can give some tools and have some discussion with many different nurses across the U.S.” (Beau Amaya, MS, RN, OCN^®) TS 5:04

“Why I am so excited to attend Congress is that it really gives us an opportunity to work together with our colleagues, learn what each other is doing, and kind of leverage our collective wisdom. So this way we work smarter instead of harder.” (Leah Scaramuzzo, MSN, RN, MEDSURG-BC, AOCN^®) TS 7:58

“I was a scholarship recipient, which I was super excited to receive this year for the Congress 2024 in D.C. … Out of COVID, we all were virtual, so I wanted to able to see people in person and attend a national event. Also, I’m looking forward to reigniting my passion for oncology nursing because you kind of get burned out after a while in this field.” (Brenda Marsolek, BSN, RN, OCN^®) TS 9:14

“I’m also really excited to share my role as a nurse resident. I hear a lot that new nurses shouldn’t be hired in oncology or it’s difficult to hire them. And I did it. I successfully did it with the help of [Leah and Brenda]. And so, I think other people can do that as well and that we can have new grad nurses have really healthy careers in oncology in the future.” (Brandy Thornberry, ASN, RN, OCN^®) TS 10:38

“I chose to be a presenter this year because I always enjoyed listening to the presentations that everyone else brings to Congress. I always learned so much. I wanted the opportunity to be able to share one of the projects I did last year that had great results attached to it, so that hopefully others can listen to my presentation and maybe take something away from it back to their own centers.” (Erin Hillmon, MSN, RN, BMTCN^®) TS 11:28

“Nurses can find ways to engage in shaping health policy. Many nurses don’t recognize the connection between health policy and the bedside. Policies beyond one’s institutions or organizations have a direct impact on how we nurses practice. And my goal is to empower nurses to understand that because of our professional experience, education, and interactions with those populations who we care for, we are really poised to influence and shape health policy.” (Gilanie De Castro, MSN, RN, OCN^®, NE-BC, CNML) TS 14:38

“The big thing I want to let everybody know about Congress is that there’s so much to learn, and there’s so much experience that every attendee brings. No matter what level of education you have, what setting you work in, what kind of patients you take care of, everybody has something that they can bring to the table. It doesn’t matter where you learn this information either. There’s lots of sessions, posters, and networking roundtables. What I’ve learned in these few years is really just embracing what Congress can bring to everybody. So for anybody that’s on the fence, I’d urge you to take that leap and register. Attending Congress is a decision you won’t regret.” (Holly Tenaglia, DNP, APRN, AGCNS-BC, OCN^®) TS 19:47

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