SWOG Establishes An APP & Nurse Scientist Committee

We’re delighted to add this piece of breaking news to today's post: The U.S. FDA has just approved the chemo-immunotherapy combination nivolumab + AVD for treating Stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in patients 12 years and older, based on the results of our pivotal S1826 phase 3 trial, a study led by SWOG Cancer Research Network and the Children's Oncology Group, and sponsored by the NCI. Congratulations to all involved!

With the start of the new NCTN grant cycle, SWOG has just established a new research support committee – our Advanced Practice Provider (APP) and Nurse Scientist Committee.

We’ve appointed Jamie S. Myers, PhD, RN, AOCNS, FAAN, and Christa Braun-Inglis, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, AOCNP, as its inaugural co-chairs.

They’ll convene the committee’s first sitting at the SWOG spring group meeting in San Francisco on Friday, May 1, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm PT (if you can’t make it in person, you’ll be able to attend virtually).

Drs. Myers and Braun-Inglis are, of course, the ideal leadership team for this committee, having for a number of years now led efforts within SWOG – and across the NCTN and NCORP – to more fully integrate APPs into NCI-supported clinical trials.

Our new committee launches with two sets of objectives – the first relating to education and training, the second to research.

Under the education rubric, goals include:

• recruiting and training APPs and nurse scientists to be productive members of this new committee,
• integrating these members into the full range of other SWOG committees (we’re huge fans of encouraging cross-committee communication), and
• educating and mentoring APPs and nurse scientists to participate to their full scope of practice in NCI-supported clinical trials

Research goals for the new committee include:

• developing strategies to promote opportunities for APPs and nurse scientists to contribute to protocol development and trial accrual and to serve in a range of trial leadership roles – as study chairs and co-chairs, as SWOG study champions for trials led by other groups, and as site-level lead investigators on SWOG trials;
• identifying and lowering barriers to the full integration, as described above, of APPs and nurse scientists in NCTN and NCORP trials; and 
• collaborating with and providing leadership for the APP Research Base Working Group, which addresses NCTN and NCORP barriers to APP practice across NCI-sponsored research.

Empowering APPs and nurse scientists to contribute to their full potential to clinical research will also be the theme of this spring’s Take Action Symposium in San Francisco. “Advanced Practice Providers as Catalysts for Access, Enrollment, and Retention in Oncology Research!” presented by our recruitment and retention committee, is on the schedule for Thursday, April 30, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PT. 

And The Hope Foundation’s NCTN MAPP program, which provides mentoring and professional development opportunities to APPs looking to become more involved in clinical research, convenes its second cohort of mentees at our spring meeting. 

The creation of our new research support committee recognizes the critical contributions our advanced practice providers and nurse scientists already make to the success of NCI-sponsored research and, going forward, will help empower more of them to contribute to that research to their full scope of practice. 

Both help SWOG advance our mission of improving the lives of those touched by cancer. 

Drs. Myers and Braun-Inglis encourage APPs, nurse scientists – and all SWOG members who want to learn more about how to partner with the new committee to facilitate protocol development, accrual, and conduct – to join the committee’s inaugural session Friday, May 1, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm PT, either in person in San Francisco or virtually via Zoom.