As October comes in with all the pink fanfare and breast cancer awareness celebration, there is group that shares comments such as: "I just want to hide under the covers and check out.” And "I just don’t want to be confronted with all this pink garbage."
It can be difficult to keep up with all of the cutting edge breast cancer research that is published in the various peer review journals. One option is to subscribe to Artemis, an electronic medical journal that is on the Johns Hopkins Breast Center website.
Patient navigators will work with a variety of patients with diverse backgrounds including people of different genders, ages, cultures, races, religions, abilities, and sexual orientations.
A cancer diagnosis can create extreme stress for some patients. As such, patient navigators should exhibit insight and understanding about emotions and human response to emotions to create and maintain positive interpersonal interactions.
Patient navigators should continually be seeking new information that can benefit their patients. This includes the identification, understanding, analysis, and use of resources and services for cancer patients with a myriad of needs.
We are rapidly approaching the time when one thousand of us will come together for the AONN+ conference in Vegas. A key highlight for this year's conference will be the opportunity to offer the certification exams for oncology nurse navigators as well as patient navigators!
Each year AONN+ presents a survivorship session at the annual meeting and it is a takeaway of ideas and further stimulating conversation on what is best practice.
