These AOSW members have made some amazing accomplishments. I am humbled to be in such distinguished company.

• All of us who work in facilities that host The Schwartz Center Rounds^® have seen that Krista Nelson (Oregon) is among the six finalists to receive The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Care’s National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award. And Wendy Walters (Alabama) appears in a film about The Schwartz Center Rounds^® that was shown at the awards dinner on November 18th.
   
• Lisl Schweers (California) and Kara Cruz (Pennsylvania) received their OSW-C credential. Kara noted that her six-year oncology social work career began as an intern in a system with little oncology social work representation and expanded as a part time and later full time oncology social worker. Congratulations to both of you! 
   
• Christina Bach (Pennsylvania), AOSW Education Director, was the keynote speaker at the LLS Mid Atlantic Blood Cancer Conference in September. Even cooler, she participated in a Twitter Chat about work and breast cancer sponsored by Dr. Phil, Pfizer, and Cancer and Careers. Christina put out a strong tweet about oncology social workers that caught Dr. Phil’s attention. Meanwhile, her beagles are keeping everyone smiling when they are on duty as pet therapy dogs.
   
• Brahms Silver (Montreal) gave two presentations during Volunteer Conference Day, “Educating for Success,” sponsored by Hope & Cope of the Jewish General Hospital/Segal Cancer Centre in Montreal.
   
• Amanda Musser (Pennsylvania) spoke at the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition Conference in October. She is now on its Grant Review Committee and Photo Exhibit Committee for "67 Women, 67 Counties."
   
• Kristin Scheler (Wisconsin) was appointed a member of the Consumer Advocacy Committee of the Center for International Bone Marrow Transplant Research.
   
• Donna Suckow and Wendy Griffith (Texas) work at MD Anderson Cancer Center and received the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care’s “Eleanor Clark Award” for innovative programs in patient care.
   
• Paul Clark (Florida) is now Assistant Professor at the University of North Florida.
   
• Tara Schapmire (Kentucky) was the keynote speaker at the 32nd annual conference of the Florida Society of Oncology Social Workers.
   
• I, Louisa Daratsos (New York) just finished a two-year term on the Planning Committee of the ASCO Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium.
   
• Darren Arthur (New York) has an article in a special issue of the Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, a peer-reviewed journal (“Social Work Practice With LGBT Elders at End-of-Life: Developing Practice Evaluation and Clinical Skills Through a Cultural Perspective” http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/wswe20/11/2). Darren was a Fellow in the NYU Silver School of Social Work's Zelda Foster Studies Program in Palliative and End-of-Life Care. Another AOSW member and honoree, Susan Gerbino (New York), directs the program.
   
• Mary Ann Burg (Florida) is co-author of the recently published book, The Behavioral Health Specialist in Primary Care: Skills for Integrated Practice (Springer). She is also the author of a chapter in the Handbook of Oncology Social Work and the first author on a research article in the January 2015 issue of Cancer (“Current Unmet Needs of Cancer Survivors: Analysis of Open-Ended Responses to the American Cancer Society Study of Cancer Survivors 11”).
   
• Penny Damaskos (New York) co-authored an article on mentorship in the Journal of Palliative Care.

Of course, I can’t write a Kudos column without celebrating The Oxford Handbook of Oncology Social Work, Psychosocial Care for People with Cancer and celebrating its editors—Grace Christ (Washington), Lynn Behar (Washington) and Carolyn Messner (New York). Besides co-editing this tome and her work at CancerCare, Carolyn is being inducted as a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine in November and published an article, “Cancer and Social Work,” in Currents, the newsletter of NASW’s NYC chapter. Carolyn proudly notes that many of the 160 contributors are oncology social workers and members of AOSW. The book has 106 chapters thematically divided into 19 sections. Here are some of the AOSW members who authored an article in this tome–

• Paul Clark (Florida) and Sage Bolte (D.C.), “Living with Cancer: A Sense-Making Approach”
• Penny Damaskos (New York) was section editor of the self-care section. She also authored “Survivorship” with Carly Perry (D.C.), “Supervision” with Annamma Abraham Kaba (New York) and “Building Resilience” with Jane Bowling (New York).
• Susan Hedlund (Oregon) contributed three chapters, “Oncology Social Work: Past, Present, and Future;” “Introduction to Working With Families in Oncology,” and “Parents of Younger Adults With Cancer.”
• Maria Chi (New York), “When the Other Shoe Drops: The Unique Fears and  Challenges of Recurrent Disease”
• Catherine Credeur (Texas), “Managing Volunteer Services in Oncology”
• Louisa Daratsos (New York), “Veterans and Cancer”

Whenever you have some great career news, please share it. Send an email titled “Kudos” to Jordan Burghardt at AOSW Headquarters.