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A number of essential articles are published in specialized peer-reviewed publications that many healthcare providers don’t routinely read. Exchanging peer-reviewed articles with your multidisciplinary team can help provide valuable insights and improve patient care as a result.

With the increasing number of cancer survivors and their complex needs, new models of care are needed to aid patients in their transition to survivorship care. An individualized treatment summary and survivorship care plan can help patients and healthcare providers smoothly transition to survivorship care in a community-based setting.

Regardless of their career path, nurses can advance in their profession through certification and education by attending conferences and educational events, pursuing degrees, and participating in evidence-based research.

Patients in rural settings often experience geographic and financial barriers in their transition to oncology survivorship care. Using telemedicine can improve patients’ access to care and their outcomes, and survivorship clinics should be specifically evaluated for rural populations.

We conducted a survey of patients who were identified from the Baystate Medical Center tumor registry who presented with breast cancer between 1997 and 2007. The women had ongoing follow-up with a medical oncologist or with a breast cancer survivorship clinic with guideline-based surveillance but no survivorship care plan (SCP) and were initially treated by the present investigators. After confirmation of study eligibility (stage I-III disease, no distant relapse, age >18 years, able to complete questionnaires, and 1-10 years since diagnosis), an invitation-to-participate letter was sent by each patient’s physician.

The following clinical trials are currently recruiting patients with myelodysplastic syndrome for inclusion in a variety of studies targeting a specific subpopulation of patients with this syndrome. Each trial description includes the NLM Identifier to use as a reference with ClinicalTrials.gov. The information below can help oncology nurse navigators direct their appropriate patients to a specific clinical trial described here.

This issue of JONS provides a preview of the posters that will be on display and presented at the Sixth Annual AONN+ Conference, October 1-4, 2015, in Atlanta. Below is a selection of conference abstracts. Look for more abstracts in the coming weeks.