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Oncology Nursing Foundation Announces 2023 Recipients of Prestigious Memorial Lecture Award

(May 1, 2023) PITTSBURGH, PA  — The Oncology Nursing Foundation named Suzanne Carroll, RN, MS, AOCN®, Lauren V. Ghazal, PhD, FNP-BC, and Amy E. Rettig, DNP, MALM, MSN, BSN, RN, ACNS-BC, PMHNP-BC, as the 2023 Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lecture award recipients. The three served as panelists in the lecture’s brand-new, conversational format on April 28, 2023, at the 48th Annual ONS Congress® in San Antonio, TX. Deborah A. Boyle, MSN, RN, AOCNS®-Emeritus, FAAN, ONS member and 2000 recipient of this award, served as moderator for the presentation, titled “Current Challenges: Nursing Sustainability.”

The Foundation’s Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lecture award supports an annual lecture on a topic related to the psychosocial aspects of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and care presented by an individual(s) who is an inspiration in the field. Its namesake was a young woman who was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at 19. She was told she did not have long to live, but her passion for education and survivorship advocacy sustained her for another 14 years. She managed the National Cancer Institute’s Coping with Cancer program, where her work on the project and her own remarkable ability to cope with cancer inspired her friends and colleagues to establish a lectureship in her memory.

“Since 1982, the Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lecture has been an integral part of ONS Congress. The highly anticipated presentation is steeped in tradition and reaches every member of the oncology nursing community,” Foundation Board of Trustees Mara Mogensen Flaherty Memorial Lecture liaison Cynthia L. Edlow, RN, MBA, said. “This year, the Foundation Board decided on a new approach and invited three outstanding oncology nurses to share in the popular Mara Lecture rather than a single speaker. Each brought their own unique perspective in brief presentations and then participated in a panel discussion. The focus integrated balancing tensions, finding your voice, discovering and rediscovering your why, and the moral and ethical implications affecting nursing sustainability.”

The Oncology Nursing Society created the Oncology Nursing Foundation in 1981 to accept charitable contributions to advance these important activities on behalf of oncology nursing. The mission of the Oncology Nursing Foundation is to support oncology nursing excellence. Thanks to the generosity of individuals and institutions, the Oncology Nursing Foundation has awarded more than $31 million in funding since its inception for oncology nursing education, research, and leadership development, giving nurses the opportunity to pursue excellence in delivering care to patients with cancer. For more information or to donate to the Oncology Nursing Foundation, visit www.onfgivesback.org.

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Media Contact:
Lori Reda

lreda@ons.org