AOSW Connections

Congratulations to our newly elected Board members:

• President-Elect, Bill McDermott, MSW, LCSW
• Education Director, Heather Goltz, PhD, LMSW, MEd
• Director-at-Large, Linda Mathew, MSW, LCSW-R, OSW-C

We extend a warm welcome and look forward to working with you.

Speaking of elections, in the world around us it’s that time of year in an election cycle when candidates are emerging, debates are taking place and we begin to think about societal problems with more scrutiny. At its core, one of the major pillars in this democratic process is the idea of value and what matters most to voters.

For those of you who have never attended an AOSW annual conference, we encourage you to begin making plans now to come to the one next year so you too can reap the many benefits it always provides. The Conference Planning Committee is reviewing more than 130 abstracts and formulating the main speakers, the poster exhibits, the exhibitors, the fun times.

"I had a professor who told us, 'If you [as an organization] are not financially solvent, you cannot do all of those great things you want to do.'"

We are the new SIG Co-Chairs for the AYA SIG and are very excited to work with you in this capacity! Here is a little bit of information about us. 

Democratizing Stem Cell Transplant in Mexico

Jeanice Hansen, LCSW, OSW-C
Oncology Social Worker & Cancer Support Services Manager
Saint Joseph Hospital Cancer Centers of Colorado
Denver, Colorado

Most oncology social workers (OSWs) are at least somewhat familiar with clinical trials, the systematic process by which research ideas move from bench to clinic while researchers carefully gather sufficient data to determine whether a new approach is as good as or better than the current standard of care. Historically, this has been a lengthy, expensive process. A new drug may be in development for 10 years before receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and average research costs are estimated to be between $650 million and $2 billion for each drug (Prasad & Mailankody, 2017 ).

It is my pleasure to introduce Ronald Mills and Mi Hwa Lee, new members of the AOSW Research Committee and of the subcommittee that will be providing articles for the research column in The AOSW Newsletter. They will be soliciting reports on research activities in oncology social work, reporting on important research findings of relevance to oncology social workers and describing research opportunities.