The Whole Person: How Susan Yaguda Is Redefining Cancer Care

Susan Yaguda didn't set out to be extraordinary. She just kept saying yes.

As a registered nurse and nurse manager at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, Susan has spent her career doing something deceptively simple: treating the whole person. In the Center for Supportive Oncology, where she oversees integrative oncology, cancer survivorship, and senior oncology, her philosophy is grounded in a belief she holds as personally as professionally — that we are all spiritual beings in a human body, and that healing means more than curing.

"Our heads are attached to our bodies," she says. "We aren't one or the other."

A Team Ready at the Door

That conviction has shaped everything she's built. When a patient walks through the doors of Levine Cancer — scared, overwhelmed, drowning in medical terminology — Susan's team is ready. Music therapists. Chaplains. Acupuncture. Meditation. Support groups. A gentle but steady hand alongside them, every step of the way.

One patient stands out in her memory: a man diagnosed with stage four lymphoma who had never been seriously ill a day in his life. He was terrified and thrust into treatment almost immediately. A music therapist helped reduce his anxiety before sessions. A chaplain — though the man didn't identify as religious — offered a quiet, non-denominational presence that simply let him breathe. Those tools became his own. He carried them home, used them between appointments, and leaned on them as his journey continued. His family, moved by what they witnessed, never really left — they're still involved today, as supporters and advocates.

That story, Susan says, is exactly why this work matters.

Joy Inside a Cancer Institution

Twelve years ago, she helped launch what has become an annual tradition at the institution: the Healing Arts Celebration. Part gallery, part concert, part community gathering, the event brings together patients, families, and staff to share and celebrate creative expression. For many patients, Susan explains, telling their story through art feels safer than words alone — a way to process trauma and share it on their own terms.

"People don't understand how in a cancer institution you can have so much joy," she says. "But there really is."

Care That Flows in Every Direction

Susan's care doesn't stop at the patient's bedside. She's equally invested in the nurses, physicians, and support staff who show up every day alongside people facing life-threatening illness. Compassion fatigue is real, and she takes it seriously — creating programming and space for her teams to process, rest, and come to work fully present. Person-centered care, she believes, flows in every direction: toward patients, their families, and one another.

Her advice to the next generation of oncology nurses reflects this. She points to what her organization calls "the loved one standard" — pausing in the busyness of a day to ask: how would I want my own loved one to be treated right now? And then doing that. Stopping for the person who looks lost in the hallway. Helping a colleague without being asked.

"There's no task one of us won't do," she says.

The Call She Didn't Expect

When Amy Hicks, one of nursing's directors at the institution, nominated Susan for CURE Media Group's Extraordinary Healer Award, Susan largely brushed it off. She thought it wouldn't come to anything, put it out of her mind, and went back to work. Then came the call.

"I was shocked," she recalls. "I thought — tell me again."

Being named a finalist left her humbled. Sitting among hundreds at the ceremony, celebrated alongside peers she deeply admires, she wrestled a little with the word "extraordinary." She doesn't see herself that way. She sees a career full of opportunities she said yes to, a team of passionate multidisciplinary colleagues, and a lot of learning from the things that didn't go as planned.

But asked to describe oncology nursing in just three words, she didn't hesitate:

Hope. Health. And healing. Susan Yaguda didn't set out to be extraordinary. She just kept saying yes.

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