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Elaine Whyte, a Registered Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) in the Virtual Ward at St Vincent’s University Hospital in LinkedIn….

Elaine describes the Virtual Ward as an innovative model of care that delivers hospital-level treatment to suitable patients in their own homes through comprehensive clinical assessment, remote monitoring, prescribing, diagnostics, and multidisciplinary teamwork. The service has expanded to include home intravenous therapy, enabling more patients to receive complex treatments without hospital admission.

She emphasises that the greatest benefit of the Virtual Ward is the positive impact on patients, who can recover in familiar surroundings with their families while maintaining independence. Elaine attributes the success of the service to the dedication of a highly collaborative multidisciplinary team and the mentorship she has received throughout her career, highlighting how empowered nursing leadership can transform healthcare delivery.

The newly appointed Derek Tierney , Secretary General of the Irish Department of Health, has set out this important principle.

Patient experience is shaped by how the organisation itself functions.

When accountability is clear, decisions are owned, delays are challenged and learning is visible, patients and staff experience the difference.

How will patients know when reform is working?

If patient experience is to become the defining measure of reform, then access, safety, outcomes, dignity, complaint resolution and patients’ rights should become visible, published measures of success.

A Variant of Uncertain Significance (VUS) is one of the most misunderstood outcomes in genetic testing.

It doesn’t mean a person has a disease, nor does it mean they are disease-free-it simply means that current scientific evidence is insufficient to determine whether the variant is benign or pathogenic.

The recent American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) statement reinforces several important principles:

✅ A VUS should not be used to guide medical or surgical decisions.
✅ Clinical management should be based on the individual’s personal and family history, not on a VUS alone.
✅ As scientific knowledge grows, a VUS may be reclassified over time, highlighting the importance of periodic review.
✅ Clear communication between laboratories, clinicians, and patients is essential to avoid misinterpretation.

As genomics becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare, understanding the difference between finding a variant and understanding its clinical significance is more important than ever.

Genetics isn’t just about finding answers—it’s also about knowing when the evidence isn’t there yet. “Dr. Jiny Nair-LinkedIn”

Will I be diagnosed with cancer? Should I undergo a preventive bilateral mastectomy to reduce my breast cancer risk? Will my children face the same cancer risks I do? How will my family members react to this genetic information?

Today, we are living in a time of heightened and unexpected uncertainty across many areas of life.

In this context, managing uncertainty means doctors and patients need to build trust, show empathy and engage in honest, ongoing conversations that acknowledge what is known and unknown, as well as work together to create a plan of action.

We can’t eliminate uncertainty in healthcare, research or society. But we can learn to talk about it, manage it and ultimately accept it. This is the perspective we need, now more than ever.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article312085564.html#storylink=cpy

Edgework is a concept that describes situations where people exist close to the edge between life and death, safety and danger and must use significant skill to navigate their way across, and survive, this edge.

When we look at the lived experience of cancer patients, we can see that many people find themselves living in a similar edge space between certainty and uncertainty, life and death. They must confront and navigate existential edges, existential threats, as well as real, immediate serious challenges.

This perspective helps us see the patient as an active presence, someone who is navigating risk with the help of their social networks and health professionals.

It encourages us to see the courage and adaptation capacities of patients as they deal with life and death situations, and the new forms of awareness, connection and purpose that can come with their negotiations of the edges that their cancer presents to them.

Lynch Syndrome: Exploring the Potential of mRNA in Cancer Prevention.

Moderna recently received authorisation from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for a Phase 1/2 clinical study evaluating mRNA-4194, an investigational mRNA-based vaccine for people with Lynch syndrome, an inherited condition that increases the risk of cancer. 

They anticipate the first trial participant to be dosed sometime this summer, this is the first step toward advancing a novel mRNA approach that aims to shift care from treating cancer after its diagnosis to preventing cancer from occurring.

By applying mRNA technology earlier in the patient journey, the goal is to harness the immune system when it could have the greatest impact.

mRNA technology works by instructing cells to produce specific proteins that can train the immune system to recognize and respond to disease. In the case of Lynch syndrome and mRNA-4194, they are investigating whether similar principles could train the immune system, specifically T cells, to detect and eliminate cells that carry these abnormal mutations before they grow into tumours. 

This is just at the beginning of this journey, and there will be important insights along the way, deepening understanding of Lynch syndrome and the potential of mRNA technology to address this high unmet need.

https://www.modernatx.com/media-center/all-media/blogs/potential-mRNA-cancer-prevention