Improving Onco-Fertility Conversations With Adolescents and Young Adult Patients With Cancer

In this episode of The Vitals, we spoke with Donna Herrera Bell, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, an oncology nurse practitioner with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) who spent 14 years working with children and adolescents with leukemia and lymphoma as well as helped develop a Pediatric Onco-Fertility consult service with MD Anderson.

Bell recently presented at the 47th Annual Oncology Nursing Society Congress about eliminating barriers to conversations around fertility preservation for adolescent or young adult patients with cancer. In our discussion, Bell highlights common barriers that young men and women face, reasons why oncology nurses may not always feel comfortable addressing the topic of fertility, and why initiating the conversation and raising fertility risk awareness is crucial following a cancer diagnosis.

“Fertility preservation is not something that everyone can do. But it is something that every [patient should] discuss, and feel empowered about,” Bell says.

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