“It was really the ability to be able to connect with many individuals from my profession. Reflecting on what initially drew me to ONS Congress, I can’t help but reminisce about my first time attending in 2002. I was going down memory lane the other day and found some pictures from my first time attending. As I reflected, I could not help but feel immensely grateful for the support and education I received as a novice nurse during that time from attending Congress,” Jessica MacIntyre, DNP, MBA, APRN, AOCNP®, 2024–2026 ONS president, told Lenise Taylor, MN, RN, AOCNS®, BMTCN®, oncology clinical specialist at ONS, during a conversation about ONS Congress. Taylor spoke with several 2024 ONS Congress attendees, asking the question “What brought you to ONS Congress?” Listen to their stories and learn how the conference has affected their careers in this special episode. Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0  Episode Notes  Information on submitting an abstract to ONS Congress Oncology Nursing Foundation ONS Congress Scholarships Oncology Nursing Podcast episodes: Episode 258: ONS Through the Ages: Stories From the Early Days With Cindi Cantril and George Hill Episode 160: Build Innovative Staff Education Tools and Resources Episode 191: Explore Orientation Opportunities for New-to-Practice Nurses ONS Voice articles: Our Unified Voices Can Improve Cancer Survivorship Care Personalized Patient Education: Ensure Effective, Inclusive, and Equitable Patient Education With These Five Strategies ONS Congress presentations from episode guests The Nurse as an Effective Educator: Facilitating Patient-Centered Learning (Beau Amaya) Powerful Outcomes From Nurse and Patient Policy Advocacy (Gilanie De Castro) Back to Basics: Utilizing Huddles to Emphasize Standard Care and Maintenance of Central Venous Catheters in an Effort to Reduce CLABSI (Erin Hillmon) Enhancing Triage Precision: Nurse Navigation's Impact on a Lymphedema Program (Jessica MacIntyre) Implementing a Graduate Nurse Residency Program (Leah Scaramuzzo) To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities. To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast Club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library. To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email [email protected]. Highlights From This Episode “What I want to accomplish is really to contribute significantly to an organization that has contributed so greatly to me. And until you go to Congress, you don’t fully realize the ripple effect that ONS has on the field of oncology nursing. They really are a cornerstone to our profession. So when I volunteer with ONS, I feel like I’m serving the oncology nursing community as a whole, and I’m so grateful to get to do that on a national level.” (Stacey Clements, BSN, RN) TS 3:35 “What is bringing me to Congress is to talk about patient education, health literacy, ways that we can improve the patient experience and help them understanding. And I think this is such an important topic because it’s what we do at the core of nursing. We really teach patients and their caregivers how to take care of themselves. And sometimes we forget that it’s not just a checklist to get the education done. It’s really learning what the patient needs, what they need to think about—some consideration about what may be affecting the way that they’re retaining information. Then hopefully I can give some tools and have some discussion with many different nurses across the U.S.” (Beau Amaya, MS, RN, OCN®) TS 5:04 “Why I am so excited to attend Congress is that it really gives us an opportunity to work together with our colleagues, learn what each other is doing, and kind of leverage our collective wisdom. So this way we work smarter instead of harder.” (Leah Scaramuzzo, MSN