First Descents opens new programs, looks for medical volunteers

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First Descents is a non-profit organization that provides free outdoor adventure therapy for young adults with cancer. The program is designed to "empower them to climb, paddle and surf beyond their diagnosis, defy their cancer, reclaim their lives and connect with others doing the same."The outdoor programs last anywhere between a day and a week and accepts young adults with cancer, regardless of physical challenges, cancer type or prognosis. Not only does the program help survivors regain self confidence and empowerment, but creates a special bond with other young adult survivors. (Our latest guest blogger can't wait to reconnect with her kayaking group this year in "Celebrate Good Times".) The group has exciting news for the upcoming programs, including adding more than 10 new locations for this year. To accommodate the new and existing programs, First Descents is seeking medical volunteers to help care for participants, including physicians, nurses, physician assistants and nurse practitioners. (Volunteers need not be skilled in kayaking or surfing, if you're worried about that qualification!) However, each volunteer should have a valid and current license in the program's state (the organization is based in Colorado, but there will be programs across the country). Applicants will need to commit to the entire duration of the program.Individuals interested in donating their time as a medical volunteer or another volunteer position at camp should visit http://firstdescents.org/volunteer-2 for more information and an online application.

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For patients with cancer, the ongoing chemotherapy shortage may cause some anxiety as they wonder how they will receive their drugs. However, measuring drugs “down to the minutiae of the milligrams” helped patients receive the drugs they needed, said Alison Tray. Tray is an advanced oncology certified nurse practitioner and current vice president of ambulatory operations at Rutgers Cancer Institute in New Jersey.  If patients are concerned about getting their cancer drugs, Tray noted that having “an open conversation” between patients and providers is key.  “As a provider and a nurse myself, having that conversation, that reassurance and sharing the information is a two-way conversation,” she said. “So just knowing that we're taking care of you, we're going to make sure that you receive the care that you need is the key takeaway.” In June 2023, many patients were unable to receive certain chemotherapy drugs, such as carboplatin and cisplatin because of an ongoing shortage. By October 2023, experts saw an improvement, although the “ongoing crisis” remained.  READ MORE: Patients With Lung Cancer Face Unmet Needs During Drug Shortages “We’re really proud of the work that we could do and achieve that through a critical drug shortage,” Tray said. “None of our patients missed a dose of chemotherapy and we were able to provide that for them.” Tray sat down with CURE® during the 49th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Annual Congress to discuss the ongoing chemo shortage and how patients and care teams approached these challenges. Transcript: Particularly at Hartford HealthCare, when we established this infrastructure, our goal was to make sure that every patient would get the treatment that they need and require, utilizing the data that we have from ASCO guidelines to ensure that we're getting the optimal high-quality standard of care in a timely fashion that we didn't have to delay therapies. So, we were able to do that by going down to the minutiae of the milligrams on hand, particularly when we had a lot of critical drug shortages. So it was really creating that process to really ensure that every patient would get the treatment that they needed. For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.
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