National APP Week: Highlighting APPs in Oncology

National Advanced Practice Provider (APP) Week 2025 is taking place September 22 through 26. As Oncology Nursing News’ co-editors in chief, as well as several APPs from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville, Tennessee, highlighted, the role of APPs is invaluable in the field of oncology.

Patricia Jakel, MN, RN, AOCN, oncology nurse consultant and associate professor at UCLA SON, and Stephanie Jackson, DNP, MSN, RN, AOCNS, BMTCN, director of nursing practice, Cancer Services, at UCLA Health, who are co-editors in chief of Oncology Nursing News, highlighted that APPs are the “backbone” of care in oncology and persevere through oncology’s advancements into immunotherapy, immune-cell effector therapy, and beyond over the decades.

Heather Jackson, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC, BSN, and Jeneth Aquino, DNP, FNP-BC, both of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, emphasized that APPs bridge the gap between patients and physicians in oncology by providing high-level care and toxicity management with more face time with patients than physicians may be typically able to provide.

Heather Jackson also emphasized that the use of APPs in oncology is still a relatively recent development in cancer care. Her colleague Emily Skotte, DNP, MSN, ACNP-BC, expressed her gratitude for having discovered oncology early in her career and echoed the sentiments of her peers in describing being an oncology APP as rewarding across her responsibilities.

Transcript

Jakel: A huge thank you to all the advanced practice nurses in oncology out there. You are the backbone of oncology nursing, and where would we be without you? Thank you for all that you do, and thank you for caring for our patients.

Stephanie Jackson: You are the essence of the medical team and conduit to patients and families. Thank you for all that you do. You sit and listen to patients. You diagnose with the medical providers diagnoses that are often complex. You are seeing the evolution of immunotherapy, the evolution of chemotherapy, CAR T-cell therapy, precision medicine, and we would not be where we are without the amazing work that you do. Thank you.

Heather Jackson: In the spirit of National Advanced Practice Provider Week, I would like to highlight the essential role of advanced practice clinicians. We really are growing in the cancer field. It’s a new, novel idea, even still. We’re only 10 or 15 years into utilizing APPs in oncology, and our role is bridging the gap, because there’s a demand for more cancer care and not enough physicians. We are an integral part of the multidisciplinary team. The great, unique thing about our role is we can evolve, we can adapt, we can specially onboard, and we can collaborate however we are needed within our multidisciplinary team.

Aquino: I’m very excited to be able to tell everyone happy APP week. We translate research to bedside and have a responsibility to help our patients understand what’s going on with their diagnosis, but also give them hope based on the data that we have. We can narrow the gap in being able to help our attendings treat these patients. It takes a village for us to help our patients, but we can all work together: with our providers, our nurses, and our pharmacists. For those reasons, our role is very indispensable.

Skotte: I’ve been a nurse practitioner for many years, and I truly love what I do. It’s exciting: as a nurse practitioner, we have these pathways that we can go down when we’re in training, and I’m lucky that I found mine early on in oncology. Oncology APPs, have several roles. My role that I love and enjoy is getting to know patients over the course of their treatment. It’s an honor and a privilege to care for patients and their families who are at a difficult and vulnerable time in their life. While sad, it’s very rewarding. Building those relationships is wonderful.

I do a lot of symptom management. We are usually the first line when patients call in for an issue or a complaint related to their treatment. They need a lot of care and conversations about planning for the future. A lot of the patients I treat have metastatic disease, so being able to build that relationship with them and talk about these hard things with them over time is really rewarding for me.

This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.