Dutch nurses benefit from a Post-EAUN meeting

The 7th Post-EAUN meeting took place on 24 September in Amersfoort, The Netherlands. More than 90 participants from all fields of urology were present. The meeting was organised by Oncowijs, an association which initiates several educational courses and meetings.

The EAUN had a successful booth at the meeting; we received a lot of questions about the advantages of the EAUN membership as not all participating nurses were EAUN members. Mrs. Corinne Tillier, (Chair of the SCO and EAUN board member) and Dr. Mrs. Hanny Cobussen-Boekhorst (SCO Member of the EAUN and nurse practitioner in continence and urostomy care) were there and answered questions about the EAUN.

During the meeting, all speakers presented their lectures in Dutch. Most themes of these lectures were inspired by the sessions of the EAUN Meeting in Copenhagen held early this year.

Clinical Nurse Specialist Erik Van Muilekom opened the meeting with a lecture about the hot topics in uro-oncology. In the last 30 years the incidence of urological cancers – prostate, bladder and kidney cancers – has increased in Europe. We see a correlation with growth, ageing population andlifestyle (obesity, smoking etc.).

Treatments for these urological cancers are still improving (e.g. immunotherapy, targeted therapies,improvement surgical techniques, and radiotherapy).

Patients with localised prostate cancer often have a choice among several treatments. Dr. Ms. Marie-Anne Van Stam showed that patients could have regrets about the choice they made for their treatment. To avoid regrets, patients need to be properly informed about the consequences of the treatment on their quality of life. They should be involved in shared decision-making if they want it (only 10% of patients want a passive role in decision-making).

Aside from the regular treatment, patients often use alternative treatment; the current trend is the use of cannabis oil in prostate cancer. The author showed that there is no evidence that cannabis oil can cure prostate cancer. Patients should also be aware of the interaction of cannabis with regular medicine.

In the morning, there were plenary sessions. One of the lectures was presented by urologist Dr. Ernst Peter Van Haarst, who explained the definition, diagnostics, prevention and management of urosepsis. Mrs. Cobussen-Boekhorst talked about a Dutch issue around the prescription of stoma and continence material. She showed a few flow charts from the EAUN Guidelines to help nurses to prescribe the appropriate stoma/continence material for patients which will depend on the following:

– functional/anatomic possibility of the patient

– activity (e.g. possible physical limitation)

– possibility for patients to participate actively to the care

“Most themes of these lectures were inspired by the sessions of the EAUN Meeting ….”

In the afternoon, the participants could choose two from the four organised sessions. Each session consists of 2 lectures. The field of functional urology was also represented at the meeting; there was a very interesting lecture on urinary tract infections and self-catheterisation by nurse practitioner Mr. Henk-Jan Mulder, who presented the result of his study.

Another interesting lecture was about the role of the pelvic floor muscles in overactive bladder, dyspareunia, and the possible treatment by biofeedback and electrical stimulation.

The 7th Post-EAUN meeting for Dutch nurses was a success. It gave them the opportunity to gain access to the most important sessions in their own language, if they had not been able to attend the annual EAUN Meeting in Copenhagen held early this year.

Participation at a Post-EAUN Meeting could be advantageous to nurses in your country as well. Currently, only Denmark and The Netherlands have organised Post-EAUN meetings, but we hope that other countries will join this initiative, as their nurses  ill definitely benefit from it and the organisers will have the EAUN’s support.

Corinne Tillier, Nurse Practitioner Urology, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital, Amsterdam (NL), c.tillier@eaun.org