Get involved with your local San Diego Oncology Nursing
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This newsletter contains lots of information to keep you "in the
know!"
Happy New Year!!!
Resolution: Get involved with SDONS!
Your 2016 Leadership Team!
2016 is a Leap Year, and we encourage you to let this be your Take a
LEAP this year to jump into SDONS with both feet! We would love to see
you at our meetings, at volunteer opportunities, in the community, and
hear what you have to say. This is YOUR year!
Photo from January 9th Leadership Team Retreat: Above from bottom left: Leah
Marquardt (2016 President), Dawn Huckabone (Fundraising Chair), Susie Bailey(Program
Chair), Ellen Carr, Eva Bariuan (past treasurer)
Top row from left: Laura Sauer (Newsletter Editor), Sheila Bedard (Membership Cochair), Gabriela Lacatus (President Elect), Riitta Sturgill (Membership Co-chair), Sandi
Weyerhaeuser (Membership Chair), and Meloddie Brooks (Past-President).
2016 Leadership Team
Ballots were sent out on December 7th, 2015, and winners were announced on
December 16th. For those of you who missed it, we are proud to announce our
2016 Leadership Team!
President: Leah Marquardt
President Elect: Gabriela Lacatus
Treasurer: Emily Purdy
Secretary: Margo Jauregui
Program Chair: Susie Bailey
Membership Chair: Sandi Weyerhaeuser
Community Outreach and Student Development Chairs: Kim Rappolt and Cindy
Trujillo
Nominating Chair:Could it be you?
Fundraising Chair: Dawn Huckabone
E-Newsletter: Laura Sauer
Technology Communications Chair: Laura Sauer
Past President: Meloddie Brooks
Susie Bailey was nominated for the
Gracia Award for 2015. Susie started
her career as a new RN at UCSD
Thornton on 3 west, and within weeks
volunteered as one of our Program
Chairs with SDONS. With a smile, she
took on a momentous task, and quickly
learned the ropes, getting our dinner
meetings in order, planned and
coordinated. This is no easy task. It is
for her gumption, positive outlook, and
heart for not only oncology patients, but
for oncology nurses that earned her the
nomination. This honor comes with a
scholarship, and her name will be
featured on the Gracia Award Plaque.
Congratulations, Susie!
Letter from our past-President, Meloddie Brooks:
The 2nd Annual 2015 Christmas Tree Give-Away was another success. Six
decorated trees adorned with $5-$20 Gift Card ornaments were graciously donated
by the members of the SDONS society. We believed that one worthy patient from
each Major Hospital in San Diego should get a Gift of Giving from nurses who
wanted to uplift a patient's spirits, especially when spending the holidays in the
hospital. Every year we give a tree to someone deserving, and this holds true for
this year's recipient, Emily Stone. She was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic
leukemia in June 2015 during her last semester of school. She is an outstanding
mother of two children, a devoted military wife, and an aspiring nursing student to
graduate from an Accelerated Bachelors program at National University. Emily
Stone has been a patient at UCSD Thornton Hospital since the summer of 2015
and had to undergo chemotherapy as an inpatient and therefore attended most of
her classes online for this unforeseen circumstance. She would often do her
nursing class assignments on her bed or sitting up at her bedside table. She once
said she did experience "chemo brain" while studying and her nurses would
remark, "who wouldn't when getting high doses of Cytarabine?" Everyone knows
treating a cancer patient takes a special kind of nurse, but a cancer patient who
becomes a nurse is an extraordinary special kind of person. Emily Stone wants to
specialize in oncology nursing and SDONS would have a great opportunity to
mentor her into our Oncology Nursing Society. She will be graduating this Spring
2016 and will apply for the ONS student membership and is excited to become a
SDONS member. She is greatful for the early morning Christmas Gift Card Tree
surprise and is thankful and honored for SDONS support. Thanks to all our nurses
who support the Giving Tree event and hopefully this December we have more
donations to give to more deserving cancer patients like Emily!
This year, SDONS teamed up with each of the hospital systems to provide gift card
trees to deserving patients. At the Vendor Fair, over $400 was donated in gift cards
and cash, so each patient from each hospital system received at least $65 of gift
cards. The trees were delivered during the week of December 6th. Photo above
was edited to add glasses to protect the patient's identity, and the patient asked
that we put the photo in the Newsletter.
From the patient’s mother at Scripps: “Please, please tell each and every member
thank you! Thank you, thank you, and thank you from the bottom of our heart! You
cannot imagine what we have gone through. We had to use some of her college
education money for the hospital bills, and we want to pay it back to her. She was
going to go into business management, but after all this, and seeing you nurses do
everything that you do, she wants to be a nurse now. This can help us so much.
Please tell everyone who gave to us thank you.”
Above photo: Left to Right: Leah Marquardt, Laura Sauer, Patient who
requested photo to be in newsletter (edited to protect identity), patient's
spouse, Amanda Tarzia, Meloddie Brooks, Miyuki Nimmo, and Susie
Bailey.
From the patient at UCSD: “Thank you all so much! I am going to pay this
forward someday when I have beat this stupid cancer.”
You can watch the news report here:
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Local-Woman-With-CancerDiagnosis-Set-to-Graduate-Nursing-School-365490401.htmlxt
From Donna Engelbert (pictured above on the left, with Cindy Connon
right) at Palomar Downtown Campus: “I dropped off the Christmas tree to
our oncology patient today (December 14th). They were VERY grateful.
The patient is in the ICU. He mouthed ‘thank you’ as he is intubated and
squeezed my hand several times. Very emotional. Thanks to ONS for
allowing us to take a little bit of cheer to this devastated oncology family.”
(Above: Laura Sauer with Balboa RNs (potential new members!),
andSoon Dalton).
From RN’s at Balboa: “This is such a wonderful surprise for her. She was
pregnant and they lost their baby while they were going through this. Her
husband is still working, but it’s been so hard. We knew it was going to be
a hard Christmas for her. It was so nice to see her smile again. It’s been a
while since we saw that.”
Kaiser nurses getting excited to deliver their tree: From left to
right:Eunice Tolentino, Cindy Trujillo, Nancy Grossman, Joan KitsonHart and Leah Marquardt.
Paula Muehlbauer representing the VA for SDONS. Thank you, Paula!
(Kaiser Nurses: Above from the 2015 December Vendor Fair: Leah Marquardt, Sheila
Bedard, Cindy Trujillo, Nancy Grossman, Clare McLean, Joan KitsonHart and Margarita Jauregui)
Starting this month, January dinner meeting-start implementing
"From the Heart" stories. Each month, we will be taking a small
amount of time to get involved and participate in our meetings. This
month, the topic is "A Nurse's Story". Start thinking now of how you
got into Oncology Nursing. This time will be to bring us back to the
heart and soul of our profession, and will help us refocus on our
calling.
We are still looking for a 2015 Nominating chair.You will have plenty of
support, and get to know a lot of people. Did we mention it looks great on
a resume? Another perk...Leadership team members get an automatic
$500 for volunteering!
Nadia Youssef, our 2015 Program Chairs writes the following about what
she did with her $500 for serving:
"I will be using the remainder of my SD ONS board member scholarship
towards the tuition of continuing my education from an ADN to an MSN
degree at Grand Canyon University. The reasons why I decided to
continue my nursing education was to have the opportunity to not only
advance my career, but also expand my knowledge in the field of nursing,
and in specialized areas such as oncology. It will also enhance my critical
thinking skills and the ability to be versatile and work in different areas of
healthcare. I am looking forward to what the future of nursing has to
offer!"
To become a member (or renew your membership), please go
to https://www.ons.org/member-center/join-renew.
Leah Marquardt and Meloddie Brooks pose with some of the donations for the 2015
December Vendor Fair raffle items!
Reminders:
2016 Monthly Dinner Programs and Meetings:
SDONS meetings are always held on the 3rd Thursday of each month in
varying locations. You can find the calendar
at http://sandiego.vc.ons.org/ and below. Location will be announced
usually the first week of the month, if not before, and RSVP’s are required
by the Tuesday before the meeting. We understand things can happen,
so if you ever need to cancel, please be sure to send an email
to sd_ons@yahoo.com to cancel so you are not added to the “No Show”
list. The first “No Show” we will contact you to remind you of our policy.
The 2nd “No Show” will result in a reminder, and you will be placed on the
wait list for the following dinner. We want to be sure our seats are filled,
and hope to never have a wait list. As it is, we have not had to put anyone
on the wait list since October of 2014! Woo hoo! So, now is the time to
start coming again.
Laura Sauer and Leah Marquardt at the 2015
December Vendor Fair
Registration for the 41st annual ONS Congress is
already open! This year, Congress will be held in San
Antonio, Texas from April 28th through May 1st. We
would like to plan to have all the San Diego Chapter
members meet up for a group photo, and we will be
passing around sign-up sheets for those attending to
be able to connect with other SDONS members
there. Also, if you take pictures, please send them
to sd_ons@yahoo.com to be featured in our
newsletter! Don’t forget to mark your calendar for next
year in Colorado!
Some Exciting News from our local Hospitals!
Scripps updates: Scripps Anderson in Torrey Pines has just opened a pharmacy on site for patients to be able
to pick up their prescriptions at the same location as their appointments.
UCSD update: The entire La Jolla campus is basically under construction! New parking lots, new structures
and new offices are cropping up everywhere!
Palomar update: Coming next spring, the Palomar Downtown Campus infusion center is being moved to the
Poway campus and the old building will be restructured to meet earthquake standards.
Above: Meloddie Brooks and Suzy Rundell enjoying the 2015 December Vendor Fair in style!
If you have been a member in the past and you took some time off, now
is the time to get back involved. We challenge you to put at least 1 dinner
meeting on your calendar this year and make that resolution to attend
that one. Then go above and beyond and go to another! We guarantee
that you will be glad you did! Need some motivation? Here’s our top 5
reasons:
Great chance to network!
2. The education is amazing!
3. Delicious food, drool!
Relaxing over a glass of wine, or your favorite drink!
1.
4.
5.
Scholarships=free money!
Ellen Carr, Leah Marquardt, Nancy Grossman and Joan Kitson-Hart looking dashing at
the Vendor Fair.
Felirose Dolor, winner of the May Scholarship drawing for $400, wrote,
“To me Magnet means excellence, empowerment, and innovative patient
care. Thanks to the SDONS scholarship, this past October I was given
the opportunity to attend this year's ANCC National Magnet Conference
held in Atlanta, GA., the largest nursing conference to date! Over 9,300
nurses came together to celebrate and recognize new and re-designated
Magnet organizations across the nation.
In a span of just three days, there were 135 concurrent workshops, 150
posters and presenters, 4 general keynote sessions, numerous vendors,
an art gallery, and so much more.
As an outpatient infusion clinic nurse, I attended the workshops most
relevant to my practice and am excited to share and implement all the
takeaways and best practice with my teammates here at home.
In addition to the general keynote sessions and poster presentations, I
attended 10 workshops which addressed the latest on topics such as:
hazards of nurse fatigue, staffing, palliative care, reducing C. Diff,
successful magnet site visits, healthy workplace behaviors, peer support
programs, leader/mentorship programs, and improving patient experience
– all in just three short days! I slept a little, learned a lot, had a blast, and
met some great nurses along the way.
The conference was an exciting and inspiring/stimulating experience. The
energy was contagious. I arrived not knowing anyone, but everyday had
the opportunity to meet exceptional people from both my facility and from
all over the country. It was a truly valuable experience networking and
learning from others in my field/profession.
I have already started talking to other nurses and hope to implement
projects soon! The Magnet conference has definitely inspired and
energized me to improve my practice and continue to do my part in
promoting the exceptionalism of our facility.”
Sandi Weyerhaeuser and Geline Tamayo helping to get everyone
checked in at the Vendor Fair
Take a leap...Literally!
Here are some Oncology Related Runs for you to lace up for:
March 5, 2016 (Saturday): 2016 San Diego Undy Run/Walksponsored
by the California Colorectal Cancer Coalition at Mission Bay Park starting
at 8:00 am, registration starts at 7:00 am. $35 entry fee
http://support.ccalliance.org/site/TR/5K/UndyNEW?pg=entry&fr_id=2321
April 2, 2016 (Saturday): 11th Annual Free Clinic Phun Run 5K at the
UCSD Biomedical Library Lawn at 9:30 am
http://phunrun.wix.com/phunrun
August 2016 (date to be determined): San Diego Free To Breathe in
partnership for Lung Cancer Survival
http://www.freetobreathe.org/
September 2016 (date to be determined): Purple Stride sponsored by
Pancreatic Cancer Action Network
https://www.pancan.org/
October, 2016 (date to be determined): Making Strides against Breast
Cancer of San Diego sponsored by American Cancer Society
http://makingstrides.acsevents.org/site/PageNavigator/MSABC_FY13_Sa
n_Diego_Strides_Walks.html
Josh Carter, Geline Tamayo and Eva Baruian having a blast
listening to Dr. Steven Eisenberg at the Vendor Fair.
Indian Hills Camp is looking for RN's to come out and volunteer for a few
days or even a few weeks this summer for "cuts, scrapes, bruises, bumps
and hugs!"
"Are you ready to be challenged and to grow while watching God
transform lives? Are you eager to live and share your life in a community
of believers who are passionate for Jesus, just like you? Then join us this
summer as a Camp RN/LVN! Summer camp nurses serve in the First Aid
Station caring for "hurts", inside and out of campers and summer
missionary staff. Camp nurses will dispense the prescribed medications
and supervise college-aged Health Care Assistants (HCA's) in
administering first aid to campers and giving lots of hugs As a nurse, you
will not find a more rewarding local summer mission. Come an join us by
serving and participating in this great medical ministry opportunity!
Volunteers are needed daily, or 2-3 times a week for morning, mealtimes
or bedtimes. Contact Angela at smc@indianhillscamp.com to sign up."
Indian Hills Camp is located in Jamul, CA. For more details, or to ask
questions, you can email Laura at spriggsrn@yahoo.com or call 619-8040195. Laura has been volunteering for the past 5 years there, and
LOVES it!
Here’s what Kelly Bass did with her $500 for being our 2015
Secretary:
I was able to use funds from San Diego ONS to purchase study
guides and take the VA-BC exam, which I passed.
As an Oncology and PICC nurse, it is very important to know how to
safely insert, infuse, and trouble shoot all types of vascular access.
Earning the VA-BC demonstrates a level of competency which in
turns offers fellow nurses a resource to turn to as well as offers
patients a certain comfort level knowing I have been certified in
vascular access.
Without the ONS funding, I would not have been able to purchase
the study guides or sit in for the exam.
Kelly Bass
Would you like to win a scholarship too? It’s so easy! Just send a sentence or 2
tosd_ons@yahoo.com about what you would like to use your winnings toward, such as a
CEU course, Congress, or other oncology related event/topic. Winners are chosen
during the months of February, April, September and November. You must be present to
win, and the winners will be announced at the dinner for that month. If you win, we just
need a short article telling us what you learned or gained from this scholarship, along
with your receipt. Good luck!
Cindy Jones and Sharon O'Mary representing the VA hospital
Calendar of Events
Dinner meetings and leadership meetings are listed on the following
dates, as well as on the Virtual Community at
http://sandiego.vc.ons.org/. You do not need to be on the leadership team
to attend, and we would love to have you! This is a chance to listen to the
planning, and have your voice heard. We get a lot accomplished, and
always, always have fun!
February 18th: February is a Leap Year this year!!! Scholarship Drawing!!!
Hosted by John Miller with KEW Group. Topic and Location to be
determined
March 9th: Leadership Team Meeting: 6:00 pm at Dawn's house
March 17th: We will be having a Raffle Drawing! May the luck o’ the Irish
be with ye! Hosted by Kristin Klein with Merck Oncology. Topic and
Location to be determined
April 21st: CEU: Medical Learning Institute Inc. Topic: PTCL Location to
be determined Scholarship Drawing!
April 28th through May 1st: Congress in San Antonio, Texas. Will y’all be
there?
May 6th: Padres Game!!! Come out and show your support for SDONS
for Nurses’ week!
May 11th: Leadership Team Meeting at 6:00 pm at Dawn's house
May 19st: CEU: Topic: Fertility Preservation hosted by Amanda
ReCupido with Public Communications, Inc.
June 16th: Fundraising Raffle! Topic: Polycythemia Vera hosted by Yune
Kim with Incyter Corp
July 21st: Hosted by Mike Waldron with Baxalta Pharmaceuticals. Topic
and location to be determined
August 10th: Leadership Team Meeting at 6 pm at Dawn's house
August 18th: Hosted by Cathey Bridgeman with Genetech BioOncology.
Topic and Location to be determined.
September 15th: Scholarship Drawing! We are working on a CEU dinner,
so date, location and topic to come.
October 12th: Leadership Team Meeting at 6 pm at Dawn's house. Guten
Tag!
October 20th: Topic: Chemotherapy Induced Nausea and Vomiting.
Hosted by Leslie Laudeman with Tesaro Bio-Oncology
November 9th: Leadership Team Meeting at 6 pm at Dawn's house
November 24th: Scholarship Drawing! Get ready to Vote
December 1st: VENDOR FAIR!!!!! Location and theme to be determined.
If you have a place in mind, please share it with us at
sd_ons@yahoo.com
The Scripps gals rockin' it at the Vendor Fair: Left to Right:
Dawn Huckabone, Sheila Bedard, Katy Ott, Jennifer Byrne,
Laura Sauer and Sharon O'Mary
We need volunteers from each hospital to help us with a very easy
project. Each hospital and clinic needs to have 1 volunteer to post the
information for each of the monthly dinner meetings in their break room to
help us get the word out. This person will also help by posting the dinner
meeting flyer at their unit, or printing and posting the newsletter as it
comes out. If you are able to help us out in this small, but vital role,
please sign up at the next dinner meeting, or send us an email at
sd_ons@yahoo.com
Let 2016 be the year you make that LEAP into Oncology Nursing again,
get involved, and bring a friend. We look forward to seeing you soon!
The biggest showing was from UCSD:
Susie Bailey, Meloddie Brooks, Jennifer Byrne, Josh Carter, Eva
Bariuan, Sharon O'Mary, Suszie Hsieh, Geline Tamayo, Ellen Carr,
Aileen Ewin, Monette Santos, Kim Rappolt and Laura Sauer.Please
let us know who we missed!
Some of our wonderful Vendors!
Above: Brian Keyes.
Our rep with Ipsen (above) and for Xofigo (below)
Above: On the green: Katy Ott representing Scripps Hospice with Laura Sauer
Below, our Zytiga rep!
The next edition of the Newsletter will be a special edition, focusing on
how to use the new ONS website, and how to update your personal
preferences to make sure you are receiving the information you want. Big
changes, so keep an eye out!
We still have openings for volunteers to post the Newsletter on their unit.
If you work at Alvarado, Sharp, Scripps, UCSD Hillcrest, the VA, or
another location, and would be willing to take the time to print and post
the newsletters, please contact sd_ons@yahoo.com. Your help is very
much appreciated!
Aileen Ewin and Monette Santos had a ball at our Vendor Fair!
Thank you for teeing off a great 2016! We are looking forward to getting into the swing of
things for the upcome year. We welcome your input, and would love to hear from you!
SDONS is the local chapter of the Oncology Nursing Society. It is committed to promoting quality
cancer care through nursing research and education and community service. The SDONS meetings, in
general, are scheduled every 3rd Thursday of the month. Annually, SDONS provides approximately
$5,000 in educational scholarships and awards to local oncology nurses.
For more information about SDONS, please contact sd_ons@yahoo.com.
And to submit articles, announcements or photographs for the SDONS e-newsletter,
contact e-Newsletter Editor Laura Sauer at sd_ons@yahoo.com.
Copyright © 2016
San Diego Oncology Nursing Society (SDONS)
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San Diego Oncology Nursing Society · 4345 Clayford Street · San Diego, CA 92117 · USA