Judith (Judi) Johnson
Judith (Judi) Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN, has her own consulting company, HealthQuest
that addresses living with a life threatening illness. Her main clients are companies
and organizations working in oncology and stroke. She has served as the Editor-in-Chief
of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing (APJON) since 2014. Dr. Johnson has
a diploma in nursing from Augustana Hospital in Chicago, IL, Bachelor of Science in
Nursing (BSN) from the University of Rochester, NY, Masters in Public Health Nursing,
and Doctorate in Adult Education from the University of Minnesota (U of MN.). She
also has a certificate in Chemical Counseling from the U of MN. and a Certificate
in Oncology Nursing from the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, England. Dr. Johnson
was elected as the Oncology Nursing Society's President in 1983-1987, to Board of
Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer in 1998 and 2004 and appointed
to the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC) Board in 1988 and again
in 1999.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) adopted Dr. Johnson's PhD thesis, I Can Cope education
course, in 1980. American nurses quickly took up the course for their cancer patients
followed by implementation globally. Research to adapt I Can Cope to the Swedish population
was carried out in Lund, Sweden in 1987. Dr. Johnson also launched a PhD program at
Hokkaido University of Health Sciences in Sapporo Japan and held a faculty position
there from 1999 to 2004. She has received numerous awards including being appointed
a Fulbright scholar. This lead to patient education (PE) projects at Tianjin, University
and Cancer Center in China and Daystar University in Nairobi, Kenya. The ONS, ACS,
and ISNCC awarded Judi their Distinguished Service Awards. She has obtained more than
20 grants, mainly to research studies in PE. Over 125 articles, book chapters and
AV productions are to her credit long with having co-authored 5 books.
This issue of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Oncology Nursing (APJON) is a special issue
that provides some of the highlights of the November Asian Oncology Nursing Society
(AONS) conference held in Seoul, Korea in November, 2015. AONS's vision is that cancer
patients in Asia will receive best care from cancer nurses who are well prepared in
providing high quality and science-based care. This second meeting of Asian nurses
was guided by this vision. It was exciting to realize that a dream to create an organization
for cancer nurses across Asia had come true. Participants gathered to learn from two
days of cancer topics ranging from research to clinical practice, government policies
and preventive strategies. In addition there were opportunities to view nearly two
hundred abstracts covering themes of quality of life, safety issues, palliative care
and side effect management and to meet both old and new colleagues. There were 687
attendees with Korean nurses making up the largest number of registrants. This number
comes close to doubling the number of participants at the first meeting held in Thailand.
During the business meeting, a new president, Winne So from Hong Kong, was elected
and appointments made for the remaining positions on the executive board. For those
of you who were unable to attend the conference, this special issue of APJON offers
a glimpse into some of the presentations at the conference.
The first paper in the journal offers a personal critique of the conference by one
of the attendee, J. Camarillo from the Philippines. He selected a wide variety of
topics on which to comment, namely quality of life, evidence based clinical practice,
research, and development of professional oncology nursing. This lead to a very interesting
summary of a number of the presentations from the point of view of a participant.
Presenters themselves authored the other summaries in this special issue. They cover
the entire scope of oncology nursing from early prevention to evidence-based clinical
practice to research across the continuum. Even the financial impact of cancer on
families, which is so often forgotten, was addressed along with the how insurance
plans are utilized to cover many of the costs. Author, L. Chen, defined how payments
for care are covered by medical insurance in China and P. Pittayapan explained the
formula for medical coverage used in Thailand. These summaries allow a reader to contrast
and compare the financial assistance for cancer care in two Asian countries. Lead
author, M. Achrekar from India reported on an interesting study, Introduction of Situation,
Background, Recommendation (SBAR) into Nursing Practice: A Prospective Study. This
research recruitedbedside nurses as the subjects. Theoutcome datasuggests that using
SBR improves communication between nurses, especially at the change of shift. Studies
like this offers a mode for nurses to improve care in the clinical setting regardless
what country they are from. B. Bultz, from Canada, talked in his presentation about
distress being important enough to be called the sixth vital sign. His message to
the audience was that nurses who are providing quality care should be assessing for
distress as a daily practice.
An article on complementary therapies (CT) authored by K. Onishi of Japan is an addition
to the Oct.-Dec. 2015 journal that has a special section on Complementary and Alternative
Medicine in Cancer Care. The research in this current article expands on the article
in the previous journal that reported using Qigong for sleep issues.[1] This time
the article describes a treatment group of anxious patients receiving a number of
CTs to treat their anxiety while a control group of equally anxious patients did not
receive any interventions for their anxiety. Both studies address symptom management
with the first being about sleep and second study about anxiety. Their findings need
now to be applied more broadly in the clinical setting.
In addition to the AONS meeting the journal invited all the corresponding editors
to an informational meeting on the status of the journal following its first full
year of publishing. Discussions were held regarding plans for 2016 and beyond (Figure
1 and Figure 2).
Figure 1
Fifteen editorial members attended the APJON editors meeting
Figure 2
APJON Editors Meeting in Seoul, Korea on November 19th, 2015, (a) Dr. Shiow-Ching
Shun; (b) Free discussions; (c) Prof. Chua Gek Phin; (d) Prof. Yong-Yi Chen (left)
and Prof. Emiko Endo (right); (e) The journal booth; (f) Dr. Qi Wang and Prof. Patsy
Yates; (g) Dr. Qi Wang and Prof. Greta Cummings; (h) The journal booth
AONS holds its meetings in November every two years. The Chinese Cancer Nurses will
host the third biannual meeting in Beijing in 2017. I hope to see you there.