At the Heart of It All: Caring for the Patients, the Practice, and the Self

TON - August 2025 Vol 18, No 3
Catherine Bishop, DNP, NP-C, AOCNP
Hematology/Oncology Nurse Practitioner

Every time we put together a new issue of The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA, I’m reminded of just how much heart, brilliance, and resilience lives in the world of oncology nursing. This work asks so much of you—not just your clinical skills, but your empathy, your stamina, and your ability to hold space for others even on your hardest days.

This issue brings together articles and stories that reflect the many layers of what it means to care, both for yourself and for others. We touch on the emotional toll of the job and how to protect our own well-being, even when it feels like there’s no time. We explore the promise of emerging tools and therapies, and how nurses are key to making them meaningful in practice. We even take a moment to think about the future in a different way (that is, our financial future) and how to plan for the lives we want beyond the hospital walls.

Through it all, there’s a quiet theme that runs beneath the surface: we’re in this together. Whether you’re mentoring a new nurse, advocating for evidence-based changes on your unit, supporting a family through devastating news, or just trying to catch your breath between shifts, know that you are not alone.

I hope these pages offer you insight, comfort, and perhaps a moment of reflection in the middle of a busy day. More than anything, I hope they remind you how valued you are.

Take care of yourself the way you take care of others. You deserve it.

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