Binaytara Foundation October Conference Recap

Faculty and medical professionals from across the country were in attendance

The Binaytara Foundation October conference schedule consisted of three continuing education meetings. The Precision Oncology Conference was held in Salt Lake City, Utah, while the Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology and Northwest Oncology Nursing Summits were in Seattle, WA.

Precision Oncology Conference

This meeting, held on October 7-8, featured faculty from the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Mayo Clinic, Stanford Health, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Intermountain Healthcare, City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, and University of Washington Medicine.

The Foundation received glowing reviews about the meeting, with several attendees leaving comments detailing their satisfaction with the format and quality of presentations.

One attendee commented, “Great speakers and moderators! What a great meeting overall. Very practical for oncologists, trainees, and industry partners.”

Twenty pharmaceutical companies, national and local, were represented and exhibited their oncology products.

“The talk was amazing overall. I feel the last talk and panel discussion on Saturday would be a great intro (or first [session]) with Dr. West, Dr. Agarwal, and the nurses was more a good introduction to discussing overall challenges with testing and how the interaction with patients regarding these results also poses some challenges that were not mainly stated or concentrated on with other talks. But overall, it was a well-put conference. Looking forward to more of these.”

Attendee

Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Summit

The next Binaytara Foundation October Conference was the Lung, or Thoracic, Cancer Conference, held in Seattle, WA, with faculty and vendors from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Twenty-two pharmaceutical companies exhibited their products and learned about the latest advances in the field during the sessions. There were fifty attendees.

Over eight universities, health care systems, and hospitals were represented by faculty, including UC San Diego Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center, UC Davis, and Northwest Medical Specialties.

Several faculty and attendees shared that they had a great time at the conference and learned about new developments and research in lung cancer treatment and care.

We would like to extend our gratitude to the conference chairs, Jack West, MD, and Christina Baik, MD, MPH, as well as moderators Joseph Rosales, MD and Rafael Santana-Davila, MD, for their leadership and support of the conference. We look forward to next year!

Northwest Oncology Nursing Summit

The other Binaytara Foundation October Conference, the Oncology Nursing Summit, was open to nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists and focused on precision oncology. Forty nurses were in attendance, with faculty from more than ten hospitals and health care systems, including Valley Medical Center, Fred Hutch, MultiCare Health, the Everett Clinic, and Skagit Regional Health.

The nursing meeting was held simultaneously with the Thoracic Oncology conference. Faculty presented on topics such as nurse navigation in the era of precision oncology, updates on the management of leukemia, and nursing perspectives on CAR-T therapy, among others.

Feedback was overwhlemingly positive, and attendees and faculty alike expressed their appreciation of the format, great discussions, and easily-applied information that was presented.

“They give a new spin on how conferences are presented. They take [the topic] and and make the whole conversation about it, how we treat these diseases, and where we’re going in the future, interesting, so it makes learning so much more fun. I appreciate the format that the Binaytara Foundation uses to educate our oncology community.”

Lynley Fow, Faculty member

The conference chairs and moderators have plans to make this an annual meeting and expand to include more nurses throughout Washington. We look forward to seeing how the conference grows next year.

We would like to thank the conference chair, Chermaine Wullf, RN, and moderators Lynley Fow, ARNP, Dana Scharfenberg, MN, Jaycee Wong, ARNP, and Navanshu Arora, MD, for their leadership and contribution to this meeting’s success.

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The Binaytara Foundation is a global cancer non-profit dedicated to improving access to cancer care in the United States and abroad through education and innovative program models that break down barriers and advance best practices in hematology and oncology. Binaytara Foundation’s major projects include hematology and oncology conferences, and the establishment of a cancer hospital in Nepal.