2025 Nursing Conference Grant Winning Essays

The questions for this year’s application cycle were as follows:

Please describe how you will share what you learn at this conference with colleagues.
How will you incorporate what you learn from this educational offering into your practice?
How will this conference advance your long-term career goals (beyond the attainment of continuing education hour requirements)?

Essays were lightly edited for grammar, flow, and readability.

Alana Fitzgibbon

Essay 1: By sharing key conference learnings with my oncology, surgical, endoscopic, allied health and outpatient teams, I will: - Standardise GI Cancer Care Pathways based on updated European and International guidelines presented at EONS and ESMO. Ensure these pathways are patient centred / focussed within a truly multi-disciplinary support model and are applicable to our local resources and patient needs. - Encourage integration of oncology nursing expertise into multi-disciplinary decision-making, particularly around symptom management, survivorship and psychosocial care. I am currently mentoring the Clinical Nurse Consultant for GI Cancer Surveillance in developing and implementing nurse-led clinics within her outpatient surgical department. I will be able provide her with stronger evidence and other centre's experience of implementing nurse-led practice into clinical care. - Lead local education and quality improvement projects. I will develop and lead staff education sessions to share practical updates from the conferences and use learnings to inform audits and quality improvement initiatives, such as toxicity assessment and documentation and psychosocial needs assessment screening and documentation. - Inspired by innovated models from EONS/ESMO, I aim to explore adaptations suitable for rural and regional Tasmanian patients, particularly in the areas like telehealth follow-up, shared care with GPs and use of community-based nursing services. Majority of patients living in Southern Tasmania live in regional areas outside of the tertiary hospital. This brings many challenges to them, their families and the treating teams. It relies on a high level of communication and shared decision making between the treating team at the hospital, myself, the patient/family and their local nursing team and primary health care physician (GP). Attending the EONS and ESMO conferences will significantly benefit the wider GICaNN (Gastro-intestinal Cancer Nurses Network). As the Chairperson for this network, I am committed to advancing the collective knowledge, advocacy and visibility of GI Cancer Nursing across Australia and New Zealand. Exposure to global best practices, emerging research and innovations in Cancer Care through EONS and ESMO will allow me to:

Share key international insights on GI cancer management and translate European and international standards into actionable insights for Australia and NZ contexts, supporting our members to benchmark and elevate local practice.
Inform strategic direction and purpose of GICaNN. By applying learnings from both conferences, I will be able to help clarify and strengthen the strategic and long-term goals of GICaNN, ensuring we remain aligned with the latest developments in cancer nursing and aligned to patient-centred outcomes.
Support sustainability and growth of the network. I will use conference connections and global examples to explore how other specialist oncology networks are funded, structured and sustained. I will identify any opportunities for the GICaNN to partner with international bodies and nursing networks to help raise the visibility of Australasian GI nursing on a global stage.

Essay 2: Attending the EONS and ESMO conferences will provide me with a valuable opportunity to engage with the latest evidence-based practices, innovations in cancer care, and multi-disciplinary models of care from a global perspective. As a Clinical Nurse Consultant for patients with Gastro-intestinal (GI) Cancers at a tertiary centre in Southern Tasmania, I support approximately 200 newly diagnosed GI cancer patients per year. I provide holistic, coordinated care involving patient education, supportive counselling, specialist referrals, and cross-department collaboration. I also run nurse-led clinics in the outpatient oncology department, where I review patients currently on chemotherapy or immunotherapy, and support patients transitioning to surveillance or best supportive care alongside palliative care services. I am also the Founder and Chairperson for the Gastro-intestinal Cancer Nurses Network (GICaNN) of Australia and New Zealand. This is a network of over 100 specialist GI Cancer Nurses with the purpose of bringing us together as experts; learning from each other; provide educational sessions and tools; identify areas for practice change and improvement; develop and inform practice guidelines and ensure nursing involvement in clinical trials for patients with GI cancer. The knowledge and insights gained from these conferences will be directly integrated into my clinical practice in the following ways:

1. Strengthen my practice in the Nurse-Led Clinics I conduct: The EONS sessions on digital innovation and artificial intelligence; health promotion/prevention/screening; supportive care, symptom management and integrative oncology will directly enhance my approach in the nurse-led clinics. I plan to: - champion the use of AI for nursing staff within my department. This is a very new topic that we need to address and currently no AI technology is used by nursing staff.

Champion novel approaches and tools used for health promotion within an acute care setting.
Implement more thorough use of up-to-date and valid toxicity grading and early intervention tools to support patients receiving chemo or immunotherapy.
Implement a more sound method of incorporating psychosocial needs assessment screening into my practice. Currently we have a tool available, but are limited regarding methods of ensuring its effective use.

2. Enhance Patient Education and Counselling.

I will incorporate new educational strategies learned through EONS to deliver more tailored, understandable, and culturally sensitive information to my patients. This includes: - using visual decision aides, simplified language tools and layered techniques to support patients and carers navigating complex treatment decisions. We have a high rate of poor health literacy in Tasmania, which impacts significantly on patients' whole treatment journey. I need to learn and apply methods of supporting and educating my patients and their families.

3. Improve supportive care and psychosocial interventions.

I will be able to apply evidence-informed supportive care strategies for managing symptoms such as chemotherapy toxicities and adverse events from immunotherapy which are prevalent in patients with GI cancer
expand psychosocial care by incorporating survivorship planning and quality of life assessments discussed at EONS, and tailor them to my regional context.

4. Link patients to Global and Local Resources.

Provide patients and families with improved access to reputable, evidence-based resources, including digital tools, support groups and learning platforms that are delivered in other languages than English.

Essay 3: The EONS and ESMO conferences are two highly respected meetings held each year for professionals within Cancer Care - globally. Presentations, papers, posters etc are evidence-based and address the most up-to-date topics/challenges of cancer care. It has been a career-long goal of mine to attend ESMO / EONS.

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