by Mike Lee
Staff Writer
When Tammi Holden, RN, BSN, first went to nursing school she had a plan. Not only was oncology her sole focus, but she had an idea of exactly what she wanted her practice to feel like.
“That’s really all I wanted to do. I never had any other considerations,” said Holden, now the assistant vice president of oncology patient services at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Tulsa. “Most people go to nursing school and figure out where their niche is. I knew going in I wanted to take care of oncology patients.”
With that came a lot of awkward looks and more than a few ‘But that’s so sad’ comments from her fellow students.
Holden went to nursing school in her late 20s with the sole purpose of becoming an oncology nurse.
But it wouldn’t be that easy.
Holden’s scholarship was tied to a hospital placement. It happened to be during a time when a record low number of nursing positions were available and she wound up having her scholarship revoked because she couldn’t be placed in the hospital.
“I didn’t get to go right into oncology so I was just crushed,” Holden said.
Along the way she did manage to pick up valuable experience working medical-surgical and then later in an emergency room setting.
“I always knew if I could just get my foot in the door somewhere and get started in oncology I knew I would be in the right place,” Holden said.
Her first opportunity to get into the oncology field was working with hospice.
It was a joy.
Ultimately, she began working in an oncology unit as a care manager and moved up to floor manager.
“I thought I had arrived,” she said. “While I had never got the opportunity to really do a lot of bedside nursing with oncology patients, I was getting to interact with them every day and I was getting to interact with the people who were caring for them and that meant everything to me.”
So Holden decided to make the lives of those caring for oncology patients as easy as possible. She was busy focusing in that direction when one day a friend called and told her she had to come check out Cancer Treatment Centers of America.
After two months in a row of the same phone call Holden finally relented.
“When I walked in the door it was almost like that feeling you get when you come home in the evening,” Holden said. “You were just able to relax. It just felt good to be here.”
Since 1988, Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) has been helping patients win the fight against cancer using advanced technology and a personalized approach.
Four of the CTCA hospitals have maintained the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ coveted Five-Star Quality Summary Rating based on patient experience, a reflection of the Patient Empowered Care model and Mother Standard at the heart of operations.
“I worked with a lot of opportunities to take care of oncology patients but I was never in a position where we had enough staff and we were given the autonomy to really take care of people like I had planned to do when I took my first step into nursing school – until I got to CTCA,” she said.
“You hear about patient-empowered care. I firmly believe everybody is trying but I’ve never seen anybody do it like we do it here.”
One of the greatest gifts Holden can give patients is hope.
“Some of the patients we see are patients that have gone to their doctor at home – and a lot of our patients travel a significant distance to get to CTCA – and they do that because their doctor at home tells them they need to get their affairs in order,” she said. “I can’t tell you the number of patients have come and said … my daughter is graduating in six months or is getting married in a year… if I can just make it that long.”
Patients come with diagnosis of six months or less. Often they leave with hope.
“These people are three, four or five years out and they’re healthy,” Holden said. “I just don’t believe people recognize cancer for the chronic disease it is becoming. Even if the patient just lived and made it to the wedding and then went downhill they got to that point.
“It’s not that we have any magic potion, we use the same medications the same chemotherapies. But I think the complementary services we offer and the hope and encouragement and the way we are allowed to care for people, that’s what makes the difference.
And that’s the type of practice Holden had planned all along.
