UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 31
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
This symposium was the start of something
that has been missing for a long time. Our
mission for UCLA Health is to deliver leadingedge patient care, research and education. I am
thankful that I was able to fulfill this as UCLA
employee and nurse by pursuing this goal with
ABS and seeing this symposium through.
professional experience and from our patients.
A library was created post symposium. Can you
tell me more about the purpose of this archive
of material? How can nurses/other folks in the
industry access it?
K: Archiving this material was the biggest goal
for the symposium, second only to creation of
this nursing community and conversation. It will
help provide foundational patient care resources
for brachytherapy teams that have not existed
before. This is the kind of information I wish I
could have had access to as an incoming nurse
to this field, or had access to when training
other nurses. Our goal is to continue to add
to this archive, hopefully with material from
many other contributors as well. Information
from other authors will provide much more
perspective and knowledge than anything I
could possibly do on my own.
I understand this symposium was a first of its
kind. What are your hopes moving forward?
K: The whole goal of this symposium was to start
a community and a conversation. It did exactly
that. The content is a secondary beneficial
outcome. The content that we are building
(lectures, tip sheets, guides) will provide
foundational resources for teams to use as it
applies to their setting. The symposium also
allowed for feedback on what resource material
teams need for success in their workplaces.
My hope is that requests for content will just
keep coming--and they are: we already have
more topics for next symposium than we could
possibly have time for. The options are endless
right now.
Content is currently available online through
ABS. We also have provided quite a bit of
material for non-members to access, to reach
more people and non-members that are in
need of nursing resources. Full access to the
library (with existing and future material) will
be accessible to members of the American
Brachytherapy Society.
Why is exposure to brachytherapy for radiation
oncology nurses important? Why are you/
the UCLA Department of Radiation Oncology
perfectly positioned/trained/experienced to
lead this charge?
What’s next?
K: Brachytherapy is a great subset of Radiation
Oncology, and I feel very lucky and thankful to
work for our team at UCLA. We are fortunate
to have one of the leading brachytherapy
programs worldwide and we are always
learning something new and trying new
approaches. Working here is invigorating.
Our team members are experts in all types of
brachytherapy, including not just our physicians
and physicists and dosimetrist but our nurses,
surgical technicians, patient navigators, and
radiation therapists. We are in a great position
to be able to share this knowledge with others in
our field through what we have learned from our
K: We are actively planning our next nursingspecific symposium for late 2023. Additionally,
we will be holding our first-ever nursing meet up
at the American Brachytherapy Society National
Congress this year in Vancouver, Canada. And,
we are planning nursing-specific tracks for
the Prostate Brachytherapy School and GYN
Brachytherapy School offered in-person through
ABS this fall and next spring. The enthusiasm for
brachytherapy nursing-specific content is taking
off and I’m excited to see where this all goes,
and how many great nurses and speakers join us
along the way. ☐
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