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Four Ontario hospitals first in Canada internationally certified as Centers of Excellence in Supportive Care in Cancer

Posted on November 23, 2022 by admin

Four major Ontario pediatric hospitals, with specialized childhood cancer programs, are the first hospitals in Canada to be awarded prestigious international certification recognizing their excellent supportive care for children and youth with cancer.

CHEO (Ottawa), The Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto), Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre, and McMaster Children’s Hospital (Hamilton) were each certified by the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) as Centers of Excellence in Supportive Care in Cancer.

Supportive care refers to the prevention and management of the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment. This includes the management of physical and psychological symptoms and side effects of treatment, such as infections, prevention of nausea and vomiting, nutrition, physiotherapy, and psychosocial support. Supportive care aims to improve the quality of rehabilitation, secondary cancer prevention, survivorship, and end-of-life care.

MASCC certification recognizes these oncology centres for integrating the highest standards of comprehensive supportive care services with cancer treatment. These hospitals provide comprehensive supportive care to their pediatric oncology patients. They work in partnership with the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) to ensure everyone affected by childhood cancer has access to the best care and support, including through POGO’s Interlink, Transitions, AfterCare, and Satellite Clinic services, and implementation of POGO’s evidence-based clinical practice guidelines.

These four Ontario hospitals join other leading healthcare facilities around the world as MASCC-Designated Centers of Excellence in Supportive Care in Cancer.

MASCC certification is valid for three years.

About MASCC
The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) is an international multidisciplinary organization dedicated to research and education in all aspects of supportive care for people with cancer. The certification program aims to promote and recognize oncology centres that demonstrate best practices in supportive cancer care by successfully integrating oncology and supportive care, upholding high standards, and maintaining comprehensive supportive care services. Learn more.

About POGO
Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO) works to ensure that everyone affect by childhood cancer has access to the best care and support. POGO partners to achieve an excellent childhood cancer care system for children, youth, survivors, and their families, and healthcare teams in Ontario and beyond. POGO champions childhood cancer care, and as the collective voice of this community, is the official advisor to Ontario’s Ministry of Health on children’s cancer control and treatment. POGO is a non-profit organization with charitable status, here for kids with cancer, for now, for life. Learn more.

Welcome New POGO Board Member – Jennifer Lomax

Posted on November 21, 2022 by admin

POGO is pleased to welcome Jennifer Lomax as Chair of our Development Cabinet and member of our Board of Directors.

Jennifer is Founder and Principal Consultant at Lomax & Co., an advisory firm that mobilizes strategy and implements sustainable management systems to drive superior business results. In this capacity, Jennifer worked with POGO to develop its current organizational strategy. Energetic, pragmatic and unapologetically candid, Jennifer uses her mastery of stakeholder engagement and facilitation to devise and deploy practical, high-impact business solutions. She has over a decade of experience working with organizations of all sectors and scale, including Fortune 500 companies on the client side and in strategic planning roles. Jennifer most recently served on the board of the Loeys-Dietz Syndrome Foundation of Canada.

She attained her MBA from Ivey Business School in 2011 and in 2013, Marketing Magazine named her one of Canada’s Top 30 under 30, recognizing the country’s smartest young marketers.

“I’m passionate about supporting my community and meaningful causes and pleased to join the POGO board and serve as Chair of the Development Cabinet to support POGO’s strategic, fundraising and outreach goals.”

POGO Statement on Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Posted on September 1, 2022 by admin

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and a time to raise awareness and express support for the children and youth with cancer, survivors of childhood cancer, and their families.

The burden of a childhood cancer diagnosis on families is immense, affecting them emotionally, socially, financially and countless other ways. In Ontario, from the time of diagnosis, childhood cancer patients have access to a coordinated system of care in leading hospitals across the province.

Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario, POGO, is a made-in-Ontario solution, working in partnership with these hospitals and the Ontario government to help ensure everyone affected by childhood cancer has timely access to the best care and support.

This September, we acknowledge the children and youth in treatment or follow up care, the survivors of a childhood cancer diagnosis, the loved ones lost, and their families; and we are grateful to the many incredible organizations and multidisciplinary healthcare teams caring for them, and to those who provide other invaluable supports.

Watch the video statement from Premier Doug Ford, Health Minister Sylvia Jones and POGO Board Chair James Scongack.

Statement from Premier Doug Ford

“We’re always thinking about those affected by childhood cancer and September is a time to raise awareness and show extra support to those with cancer, the survivors and their families,” said Premier Doug Ford. “We would like to thank the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario for providing world class care and support to children and families that are dealing with these immense challenges. We look forward to our continued collaboration, creating valuable solutions and taking care of the youth of Ontario.”

Statement from Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones

“This month we recognize the brave and resilient children receiving treatment for cancer across Ontario as well as their families,” said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “Thank you to the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario for your tireless advocacy on behalf of everyone affected by childhood cancer and the healthcare workers and organizations caring for our province’s youth during this difficult time. Our government will continue to work with Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario alongside our hospital partners to ensure everyone experiencing childhood cancer has access to the care and support they need, where and when they need it.”

Statement from POGO Board Chair James Scongack

“Childhood cancer impacts people and communities across Ontario and Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is a time for us to honour those impacted,” said James Scongack, Chair of the POGO Board of Directors. “It’s a time to build support and ensure we have the necessary resources to fight childhood cancer. In Ontario, we have amazing frontline healthcare professionals who do everything they can to bring hope to families as they go through one of the toughest experiences of their lives. September is a time for all Ontarians to let them know we have their backs from diagnosis and for their entire lives.”

The Ups and Downs of Disclosing That You Are a Childhood Cancer Survivor

Posted on August 10, 2022 by admin

Jessica Wright is a brain tumour survivor. In 2018, after an application process, she was selected as one of four Survivor to Survivor (S2S) Network Presenters. POGO’s S2S Network is a special series of interactive sessions where survivors present helpful information, lead discussions and share personal experiences about a variety of survivorship topics. During the course of their engagement, presenters build skills, a connection and a community with fellow survivors.

By Jessica Wright

By the time I was 10 years old, I was having lots of migraines and struggling at school.

My family brought me to the doctor several times, but I wasn’t diagnosed until my teacher—a childhood cancer survivor herself—convinced my parents to insist I get an MRI. I remember all of us were in shock when they told us I had a pilocytic astrocytoma tumour, which is essentially a slow growing brain tumour.

The tumour is smack in the middle of my brain so chemo would not have been effective, and surgery was not an option. I was treated with radiation for six weeks, but I still live with the tumour today; I liken it to a dead mouse behind a wall. I also live with several side effects. I struggle with balance; I move a bit slower than the average person and my strength is very poor. I have a strong sensitivity to smells and I still suffer from migraines. I am also blind in one eye. None of these things are significantly noticeable so I blend in with the rest of the world and look like a healthy person. That’s the thing with childhood cancer survivors; many of us live with disabilities long after we survived our illness. For some people, like me, these disabilities are invisible so we can be perceived as lazy, especially in a school or work environment.

That is why I am so grateful to POGO for creating a program where survivors can learn from each other about how to deal with things like employment, school, advocacy and disclosure. I need special accommodations to compensate for my disabilities and I have learned firsthand that how and when you choose to disclose these things can contribute to your success at work.

There was the time I was hired to work at a store, and I chose not to disclose my disability. My job was to stock the shelves and set up for the store’s grand opening, after which, perhaps, I would be hired permanently once the store opened. It went well for the first couple of days until I got stuck in the aisle with cleaning products. I tried to tough it out, but I got light-headed and felt faint. I asked my supervisor if I could be moved to another area of the store and she was accommodating, but my co-workers didn’t know why; they just felt I was getting special treatment. I think if I had said something at the beginning, I would never have been put in that aisle to begin with and maybe things would have turned out differently.

I have another story where I disclosed my disabilities during the hiring process because part of my job was going to be accepting deliveries. I let them know that I cannot manage with very heavy lifting and about some of my other challenges because of my brain tumour. My supervisor was very understanding and even supportive. After a few weeks, when she saw me struggling at the end of a long day, she asked if I wanted to work shorter shifts. She tried to work around my limitations as best she could.

Being a POGO S2S facilitator has enabled me to share my experiences with other survivors and hopefully help them cope with their own struggles. It has also been very uplifting and empowering for me. Everyone understands what I am going through. No matter what I say or what I do, they don’t judge me, and they don’t complain. I have never been anywhere where I felt so accepted. It has truly been the best experience of my life.

This story was featured in POGO’s 2019 Community Impact Report.

Advancing Childhood Cancer Care in a Post-COVID World

Posted on January 7, 2022 by admin

A Synopsis of the 2021 POGO Multidisciplinary Symposium on Childhood Cancer

The COVID-19 pandemic has healthcare providers and the families in our care literally hiding emotions behind masks. Family members cannot fully see the empathy we feel, and as providers, we are unable to use our traditional methods of providing compassionate care. Over the past 18 months, families have had to live their cancer journey in parallel with a global pandemic requiring multiple restrictions to hospital visits, with additional screening and COVID-19 testing. This has elevated levels of distress and burnout for families and hospital care teams alike. Recognizing this, the 2021 POGO Symposium planning committee sought to explore the issues of patient and caregiver distress and resilience, as well as healthcare provider burnout. As part of maintaining professional resiliency beyond the acuteness of COVID-19, the POGO Symposium provided an opportunity to learn about important clinical and diagnostic updates, and continued healthcare and scientific innovation.

Family Stories Remind of our Purpose

A parent testimonial opened day one and grounded us as pediatric oncology professionals in the “why” of our work. In sharing about her 14-year-old daughter’s cancer diagnoses, Guylaine Tremblay touched on the importance of psychosocial supports for all family members. On day two, the Saenz family gave real-life context to the challenge of accessing clinical trials that so many families face. These stories were powerful reminders of the impact a childhood cancer diagnosis has on the family and how the pediatric oncology community must better understand these needs and provide comprehensive and personalized support.

Care for Caregivers of all Stripes

When it comes to caregiver resilience after their child is diagnosed with cancer, we heard that 80% of families will adapt and be resilient based on our standardly-delivered supports and strategies. Of critical importance is finding a way to identify the remaining 20% who will need intensive psychosocial and possibly psychiatric support, and to ensure there are suitable professionals available for referral and intervention. Healthcare teams must also make room for self-compassion in our stressful and often chaotic work days, as we try to leverage available resources to assist families who require extra support.

Delivering Virtual Care to Survivors

The COVID-19 pandemic has also dramatically altered the way we deliver care, and especially aftercare to survivors, with the rapid implementation of virtual care. We learned what can be done well, what was of benefit to patients and families and what could be successfully carried forward in a post-pandemic world. New and innovative approaches to follow-up care include recognizing unique needs tied to the transition from acute care to survivorship clinics.

Virtual Counselling to Help Childhood Cancer Survivors

Clinical and Diagnostic Advances Bring New Hope

Of course new innovations in childhood cancer continue to emerge, and presentations on clinical and diagnostic advances added greatly to our learning. Work in the area of immune checkpoint inhibitors shows great success in treating Hodgkin lymphoma and promise for other diagnoses. It was exciting to hear about updates on CAR T for both B-cell leukemias and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), one of the more difficult childhood cancers to treat. This brings signs of hope for improved outcomes with less toxic therapy approaches. Potentially ground-breaking work in liquid biopsy allows us to imagine a world where we no longer need invasive, surgical intervention to detect cancer both at diagnosis and during cancer surveillance.

Innovation Panel Explores Strategies for Canada

The POGO Symposium wrapped up with a slate of presentations and a panel discussion with luminaries in the field that tackled everything from innovative solutions to improve clinical trial access to how Canada can develop an innovation strategy that serves patients and the economy. The message that innovation is not only invention but the successful development and implementation of these inventions was very strong. This session also highlighted our collective challenge to make available new and often expensive therapies. The discussion presented the opportunity for all of us to consider how we can individually and in partnership move the needle on public policy for advances in pediatric cancer.

With something of interest for everyone, the 2021 POGO Symposium showcased the bravery of families to help us all learn from their stories and the tremendous dedication of professionals who continue to do everything possible to provide excellent care to every child diagnosed with cancer. My hope is that we were all encouraged to heed the challenge of harnessing innovation to transform the landscape of pediatric oncology care.

“Even during the most chaotic day it is important to take a moment to breathe and remember why we chose this very important work, and to be present with our patients and families.”
– Sue Zupanec

Written by Sue Zupanec, co-chair of the 2021 POGO Symposium Planning Committee, with contributions from her co-chair, Dr. David Hodgson, POGO Medical Director and Chair in Childhood Cancer Control.

Sue is a pediatric nurse practitioner in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Program at The Hospital for Sick Children, and Chair, Nursing Discipline of the Children’s Oncology Group.

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