Johan de Munter: Reflections as President of EONS, hopes for 2024 and European Cancer Nursing Day 2023

President of the European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS), Johan de Munter, reflects on his tenure as President, steering the society through the COVID-19 pandemic, his hopes for the society over the next 12 months, including a snapshot into what we can look forward to at the EONS16 annual meeting. Finally, he discusses the these of European Cancer Nursing Day 2023, and some of the key messages from this year.

Questions:

1. What have been your achievements and highlights as President of EONS? (00:18)
2. What are your hopes for the society in 2024, and what can we look forward to at the EONS16 meeting? (01:43)
3. What was the theme of European Cancer Nursing Day 2023, and some of the key messages from this year? (03: 48)

Disclosures: Johan de Munter has no conflicts of interest to declare in relation to this video.

Support: Interview and filming supported by Touch Medical Media. Interview conducted by Sophie Nickelson.

Transcript

My name is Johan Munter. I’m the Cancer Nurse Manager of the University Hospital in Ghent, and I work, I’m also EONS President, the President of the European Oncology Nursing Society.

What have been your achievements and highlights as President of the European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS)? (00:17)

So becoming the President of EONS was quite challenging because I became President during the pandemic. So, of course, it was also for our society challenging to go through the pandemic and to give answers and to provide support to our national or our international members of EONS. In that way, it was also very important to work on the sustainability of the organization in these challenging times and how we can transform to a society that provide support to all cancer nurses across Europe during this pandemic and also involve them in research. But during that pandemic, we also had the ability to continue EONS’s important work, even if it was online, for example, or EONS conferences, the masterclasses, the research proposal workshops, so it’s all continuous and we transform it in a hybrid or even on an online platform. So in that way, we created that sustainability. And we see now we have the fruits of it because we are all experienced, and we have a learning curve of course in this digital world. But also, we are, over this time, we stepped into major EU big projects that were released by the European Beating Cancer Plan. So EONS at this point is also involved in a lot of EU projects that will help and support cancer nurses in the future.

What are your hopes for the society in 2024, and what can we look forward to at the EONS16 meeting? (01:42)

First of all, we must say that we are currently working on a new strategy for the coming years. So, we have, we are going onto a major thinking process, what are the needs in EONS, but, most important, what are the needs in the cancer nursing society communities across Europe and also our national society members, what are their needs and how we can, we with EONS, provide the necessary input so they can move forward with their vision and mission to implement evidence-based cancer nursing. I think that is what we want to create and to, in the next months, I will present, of course, as our unused strategy. But also, we will continue with a lot of big projects like our flagships, like the masterclass in cancer nursing, the research proposal workshop. And we also have, are piloting now, the Cancer Nursing College, where we are providing high-level education for cancer nurses. And of course, we are involved in a lot of EU projects. And again, we will continue this work, as it bring a lot of great input in the cancer care workforce. But also on EONS16, we will reflect on all these issues during the congress and EONS16 will be from 21 to 23 October in Spain, in Madrid. So you’re all welcome there. And of course, we’re gonna highlight several topics related to cancer nursing, from cancer nursing, for example, starting with health promotion, prevention and screening, we’re gonna talk about eHealth and digital innovations because this is a lot of things that are happening in us. And this is also, support us, for example, by the pandemic that we are now much faster in that Ehealth and digital innovation world. We’re gonna talk about supportive care, palliative care, and end-of-life care, symptom management, and, of course, we’re gonna talk, a big issue is like workforce and educational issues in cancer nursing and how we can strengthen the future cancer workforce.

What was the theme of European Cancer Nursing Day 2023, and some of the key messages from this year? (03:48)

This year, ECND, the European Cancer Nursing Day, was on May 18th, and it was held in Edinburgh, working together with UKONS, the UK Oncology Nursing Society, and we talked about a lot of topics that were related to driving innovation in cancer care. And this is so much important to talk about is how cancer nurses over the past years and still continue to bring innovation in cancer care. And these were a lot of topics. So it was very important to highlight small projects from local cancer nurses up to the involvement of EONS in these EU projects. But also we had, for example, a key speaker, professor Daniel Kelly, that spoke about how cancer nurses individually can make it from ward to board members and bring this innovation to high-level policy and implement it in hospital management, for example. And this is something we need to foster and continue to do so that innovation will bring it to the workflow, and it will accelerate cancer care and cancer nursing in the future.