The UNC Lineberger-Sylvia Lauterborn and Warren Trent Piver Oncology Nursing Fellowship program offered four nursing students the opportunity this summer to work alongside oncology nurses, gaining firsthand experience in cancer care while conducting research focused on enhancing the delivery of cancer services.
This year’s fellows were Ujala Abdul, Jasmine Inthavong and Alexandria Zielinski from UNC-Chapel Hill, and Haley Daniels from North Carolina Central University.
The fellows were recognized at a luncheon ceremony on July 18, during which they presented findings from their group research projects. The ceremony included comments from Yolanda Vanriel, PhD, RN, MEDSURG-BC, OCN, CNE, ANEF, department chair of nursing, North Carolina Central University, and Lisa Carey, MD, ScM, FASCO, L. Richardson and Marilyn Jacobs Preyer Distinguished Professor for Breast Cancer Research at UNC School of Medicine and deputy director of Clinical Sciences at UNC Lineberger.
Daniels and Inthavong’s project explored the scheduling and communication processes surrounding mammograms at UNC Hospital’s Breast Imaging Center. They discovered delays in scheduling diagnostic mammograms and issues with how results are communicated to patients. Often, patients accessed their results online before receiving a follow-up from their care team, leading to increased anxiety and reliance on searches for information online.
“This leaves room for them to interpret it themselves, which causes more anxiety. And they tend to use Google to try to figure out what they’re looking at, and that’s what we’re trying to stop,” Daniels said.
Abdul and Zielinski focused on improving the documentation and discussion of patients’ advanced care preferences. Their research included patient surveys, which revealed that only half of the respondents had advanced directives, and many did not fully understand their purpose.
The fellows recommended integrating discussions about advanced care planning into patient discharge processes, offering multilingual instructions and creating a video to clarify the importance of these documents.
“Everyone deserves a voice in health care,” Abdul said. “As nurses, our number one priority is making sure they have a role in their care, and advanced care directives gives that opportunity.”
The fellowship is co-directed by Ashley Leak Bryant, PhD, RN, OCN, FAAN, Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Term Professor at UNC School of Nursing and assistant director of cancer research training education coordination at UNC Lineberger, and Lorinda Coombs, PhD, MSN, FNP-BC, AOCNP, assistant professor at UNC School of Nursing. Additional support for the fellowship was provided by Madison Morgan, RN, DNP, Daniel Duncan, RN, MSN, IASSC-BB, Stephanie Duncan, MHA, BSN, RN, and Barbara Austin, MEd.
Leak Bryant and Coombs underscored the importance of the fellowship in developing the oncology nursing workforce.
“The oncology fellowship has been evolving to address the growing shortage of oncology nurses,” Leak Bryant said. “It now offers expanded clinical opportunities for students at UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina Central University, and our new partner, North Carolina A & T. We also are working in settings beyond Chapel Hill, including at UNC Health Rex and UNC Health Rockingham.”
“It is critical to have our healthcare workforce expand to reflect the patients we care for across the state, including in the ambulatory and community health settings, because most cancer care is now delivered in an ambulatory environment,” Coombs said.
The UNC School of Nursing and UNC Lineberger established the fellowship program in 2016 to provide UNC nursing students with rigorous inpatient, outpatient, and palliative care training. The program expanded in 2022 to include students from North Carolina Central University, and next year it will welcome nursing students from North Carolina A&T State University. Fellows collaborate closely with oncology nurses, deepening their knowledge of symptom management, clinical trials, and best practices in supportive care.
During the past nine years, 40 fellows have pursued careers as oncology nurses.
The fellowship is partly funded by Robert “Bob” Lauterborn, a supporter of UNC Lineberger and the N.C. Basnight Cancer Hospital, where his late wife, Sylvia, received excellent cancer nursing care, and by Laura Carlo Piver, in memory of her husband, Warren Trent Piver, PhD, in the belief that nurses bring unique knowledge, skills, perspective and caring to cancer care.
Sylvia Lauterborn was born in Crumlin, Wales. She was a student nurse at Charing Cross Hospital in London and held other roles before becoming a flight attendant for Pan American Airways. While in training for Pan Am in Queens, New York, she met Bob, who was on a training program for GE. They were married on Sept. 28, 1963. The couple moved to Chapel Hill in 1986 when Bob joined the faculty at UNC. Sylvia’s love of travel took her to 83 countries, first as a flight attendant, and then with her husband, who taught worldwide. She died of pancreatic cancer in 2013.
Warren Piver was a chemical engineer with a deep-seated scientific curiosity about a broad range of environmental issues. He was internationally recognized for his work on groundwater contamination and climate change. When he was 44, he underwent aggressive chemotherapy at UNC for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He received an autologous bone marrow transplant at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as UNC’s bone marrow transplant program had not yet started. During the ensuing 13 years in which he was cancer-free, Warren saw sons married, a daughter in college, volunteered with his church and in the community and excelled professionally. Fifteen years after his original diagnosis, Warren succumbed to acute myelogenous leukemia. Excellent medical care and especially knowledgeable, compassionate nursing care were vital pillars in his life story.
