It's All About Leadership and Teamwork

OncLive Chairman, Mike Hennessy

OncLive Chairman,

Mike Hennessy

Nurses are natural leaders, and that’s becoming more apparent as they apply their instinctive “can do” ethos in a healthcare environment that seems to grow ever more complex each day. Nurses are also adept collaborators as essential members of multidisciplinary care teams.

In this issue of Oncology Nursing News, we see how that leadership and team spirit plays out across many arenas. This month’s cover story illustrates how when a tone for a collegial and supportive workplace environment is set at the top, bullying has nowhere to flourish—especially when the entire team is accountable and on board.

Promoting a healthy workplace also means adhering rigorously to hazardous drug handling precautions, and again, more senior staff can lead by example. As nurse expert Martha Polovich notes in her column, “Novice nurses learn from experienced nurses they respect.”

A brain tumor diagnosis, especially when it comes in its most aggressive form— glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)—is a devastating one for patients and their caregivers, a point underscored by 30-year veteran of the nursing profession Sharon Bartelt, a neuro-navigator at Gibbs Cancer Center & Research Institute in South Carolina. As we note in this month’s feature, “Brain Trust,” she and others impacted by GBM are encouraged by the burgeoning research interest in discovering new treatment options.

As a former GBM caregiver herself, Bartelt understands firsthand the kind of intensive and compassionate care these patients and caregivers need. Here again, having the expertise and support of a multidisciplinary team is paramount.

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and this issue’s Fast Facts for the Frontline provides a primer on the essentials of ostomy care for patients and practitioners. And, on a lighter note, nurse navigator Penny Daugherty describes how resourcefulness and teamwork enabled the care team at Northside Hospital Cancer Center in Atlanta to meet an unusual patient request involving … horses.

Our Strategic Alliance Partners from Penn Nursing and the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing have written columns this month I suspect will resonate with many of you—each taking a fresh look at cancer care but wearing another’s shoes: those of the sometimes overlooked sibling of a child with cancer and when the nurse becomes the patient.

We hope that you find all of these articles informative and inspiring, and as always, thank you for reading.

—Mike Hennessy

Chairman and CEO