Education WG – Biographies

Wendy Mcinally, (Co-Chair), UK
Wendy has built a comprehensive portfolio around children and young people with cancer which covers practice, education, and research. She is a widely recognised cancer nursing specialist and have played a leading role in developing and implementing many best practice initiatives. As the United Kingdom (UK)  lead for the new Children and Young People’s Nursing programme with the Open University (OU), she is responsible for developing and implementing the new nursing curriculum, including the cancer agenda. The OU is a public research university and the largest university in the UK for undergraduate education and one of the world’s leading universities. As a previous Macmillan Cancer Nurse (UK charity provider for people living with cancer), she has a deep understanding of the ongoing need for professional education to support evidence-based care delivery. In supporting healthcare professionals caring for people living with and beyond cancer, she strives to encourage the introduction of innovative courses and resources. She has been a member of the CCLG for over 20 years and was the previous chair between 2012 and 2017. She is an active member of TYAC and the Society of International Oncology of Paediatrics (SIOP), and as such is ideally placed to collaborate with colleagues from across Europe, continuing to develop cancer research, education and practice initiatives. She has been a member of EONS since 2013. During that time, she successfully secured two leadership scholarships and PhD writing retreat through EONS. She became a member of the EWG in November 2018 and Vice Chair December 2020. She has successfully led the e-sessions for nurses delivered by the European School of Oncology (ESO) since 2018, and in 2020 developed three animations to align with the ESO resources. She also serves on the advisory board for ESO and regularly meet with them to discuss and promote cancer education for nurses and other healthcare professionals. In early 2020 she was part of the working group, led by EONS President Andreas Charalambous, developing a feasibility project regarding education for nurses across Europe and the possible development of a European College for Cancer Nurses.

Celia Diez de los Rios, (Co-Chair), Spain
Celia is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner specialised in Medical oncology. She is a Spanish nurse collaborating with EONS Education Group and is the representative of this group in the Young Cancer Nurses group. Celia did her nursing degree in Spain followed by a MSc in research. She has worked in different nursing fields but has felt an oncology nurse since the first day she worked in oncology. Her passion for oncology drove her to England. There she specialised in medical oncology, did her PGDip in Advanced Clinical Practice and helped to build a team of nurse practitioners to support oncology patients both inpatients and attending a 24/7 emergency oncology service. She started a cancer genetic nurse-led clinic for moderate and high-risk patients to improve cancer prevention and surveillance, area where is working now. Working in the 4 main areas of nursing (research, education, management and clinical) she remains mainly clinical with a special passion for education both of patients and nurses in order to improve clinical practice and patient experiences. She is back in Spain working and just started her PhD studies in the Universidad de Barcelona.

Mary Nevin, Ireland
Mary Nevin RN, RNT, MSc (Nurse Education), is a Health Research Board Doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin. Mary has over 13 years’ experience as a nurse educator at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Mary has developed experience in a wide variety of teaching methods and has a particular interest in problem-based learning and clinical simulation technology. Mary’s research interests include nurse competency, palliative care, and care delivery systems in the hospital environment. As well as her research role, Mary also works clinically as a Night Nurse with the Irish Cancer Society providing end of life care to cancer patients in their own homes.

Debbie Wyatt, UK
Debbie Wyatt qualified as a registered nurse in 1983 and following a variety of nursing posts moved into nurse education in 1988. She has worked in Higher Education for a number of years and during her career has been involved in a range of pre-registration, post registration and post graduate programmes for nurses and allied health professionals. Her main areas of interest and expertise relate to cancer care, cancer education and communication skills and she currently works as Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the University of Chester and as Macmillan Lecturer/Head of Clinical Education at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. Debbie manages and supports education and professional development in cancer care for a range of health care professionals and believes that cancer education can make a real difference to practice.

Vanessa Taylor, UK
RGN, EdD, MSc Advanced Clinical Practice (Cancer Nursing), PGCE, BSc, DPSN.
Following clinical roles in cancer and palliative care, Vanessa moved into higher education with a commitment to educate pre and post-registration health professionals about cancer, palliative and end of life care. Vanessa’s activities and published work focus on: cancer, palliative and end of life care and education; evaluation of education and its impact on workforce development and clinical practice. As Chair of Steering Group/Lead Author for the RCN Career and Education Framework for Cancer Nursing and Chair of Steering Group/Lead Author HEE (Yorkshire and the Humber) End of Life Care Learning Outcomes, Vanessa has published unique resources that distinguish levels of knowledge, skills and practice for the workforce delivering care in these fields. These resources have informed practice and policy through membership of RCN Breast and Cancer Steering Group and HEE/Skills for Health Working Group for national end of life care learning outcomes.

Eugenia Trigoso, Spain
Eugenia Trigoso graduated as a Paediatric specialist nurse. She worked in paediatric haematological transplants units for several years. Eugenia has master’s degrees in both bioethics and hematopoietic transplants. She splits her time between nursing and education training at University Hospital “LA FE”, in Valencia (Spain) where she is also a Lecturer and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Barcelona. She has also been in charge of the group of Nursing in Paediatric Training course at the European University of Valencia. Eugenia has been a member of various organizations and scientific committees and has been a speaker in Spain and abroad. Eugenia has participated in scientific committee meetings of both EBMT (European Bone Marrow Transplantation) and SEEO (Spanish Oncologic Nurses Society). She has also participated in the Paediatric Disease Working Party Meetings from EBMT and Training course for nurses and young doctor in Jerusalem, Rhodes, Bucharest, Marrakech, and the Educational meeting in Moscow, China, Perú and India.

Theresa Wiseman, UK
Theresa Wiseman is a clinical nurse academic with a joint appointment between The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Southampton. She holds a chair in Applied Health Research in Cancer Care, is passionate about research but more so that it makes a difference to patients and families. She has always maintained a clinical component of her role and has had joint clinical academic posts since 2008. She has an international reputation as a clinical academic. She is the Board Secretary of EONS, and other roles include Board Member of the European Cancer Organisation, Board Member of ABC Global Alliance and Board Member of Breast Cancer International. Her research focusses on patient experience of cancer and treatment and developing services and interventions to ameliorate that experience. Current work involves the experience of immunotherapy and living with advanced melanoma and using virtual reality as a way of coping with treatment. Her international work involves developing research capacity and survivorship pathways in Ghana and Tanzania.

Sara Gomez
Sara is a registered nurse, specialised in medical and surgical nursing, with a masters in palliative care, and currently doing a Phd in nursing. She has worked at the Portuguese Oncology Institute, in Coimbra, for 12 years, and for the last six in the palliative care unit. Since 2014, she has collaborated with the Nursing School of Coimbra and the Health School of Aveiro, teaching palliative care to undergraduate nursing students. In 2018, she had the opportunity to participate in the EONS PhD Research Workshop Program and the ESO-EONS Masterclass in Oncology Nursing. She is an active member of the Support and Palliative Care Work Group of the Portuguese Oncology Nurses Association.

Silvija Piskorjanac
Silvija is a cancer nurse specialist with almost 25 years’ experience in cancer nursing and is Head Mentor for cancer nurses at University Hospital Osijek (Croatia). Her main focuses of interest are palliative care and symptom management. She has a Master’s Degree of Nursing Science at University J. J. Strossmayer in Osijek and is currently PhD candidate at Postgraduate Doctoral Study in Biomedicine and Health there. Among other activities, she is a permanent Lecturer at the University J. J. Strossmayer, Osijek; Faculty of Dental Medicine and Health –  Department of Nursing in a field of Cancer Nursing, Ethics and Philosophy. For several years, she has performed the duty of Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) and Chair of the Commission for Nursing at the Croatian Ministry of Health. Silvija is President of the Working Group for developing guidelines on cancer nursing care at the Croatian Chamber of Nurses. She is also an Executive Board member of the Croatian Oncology and Hematology Nursing Society and until recently the Croatian representative in EONS.

Matthias Hellberg-Naegele
Matthias works as a clinical nurse specialist in the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University Hospital Zurich, in Switzerland, specialising in outpatient oncology and hematology as well as multiple myeloma. He has a bachelor’s degree in nursing pedagogy and a master’s degree in nursing science. For over 10 years, he also worked as a lecturer at several German and Swiss universities. His main topics are patient education, symptom management, advanced nursing practice, and occupational safety with cytotoxic drugs. Matthias is co-president of the German Society of Hematology and Oncology Nursing Group (DGHO) and co-president of the Swiss Academic Society of Oncology Nursing.

Tuğba Pehlivan
Tuğba worked as a cancer nurse for five years at an oncology inpatient department. Then, she worked as an educator nurse for five years at Koc University Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey. She was responsible for the education of nurses who are working at oncology-hematology clinics. At the same time, she finished her PhD in 2019 at Koc University. She developed a programme called Compassion Fatigue Resiliency (CFR) Program within the scope of her Phd thesis and she actively implemented the CFR Program for nurses in her hospital to improve nurses’ professional quality of life, perceived stress and resilience. The randomised controlled part of her PhD thesis was published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing. She attended EONS Research Workshop for Doctoral students in 2016 at the University of Stirling, Scotland. She is an active member of her national society, the Oncology Nursing Association, EARC, ESMO, and Psychiatric Nursing Association. She is currently the EONS Young Cancer Nurses Network Turkey National Representative and also a member of the Education Working Group. She continues her scientific studies, attends congress and courses, and gives speeches about psycho-oncology and strengthening oncology nursing. She has many review and research studies published national and international journals. She is currently working as an Asst. Prof. at Istinye University, English Nursing Department.

Sara Kohler, Switzerland
Sara is a lecturer and programme director at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Before moving to the university, she worked in various areas of oncology. She worked as a nurse and later as a Clinical Nurse Specialist and in management. Before obtaining her Master’s degree in Nursing Science, she completed a Master of Advanced Studies in Oncological Nursing. She also completed further training in digital learning and university didactics. She is currently completing a Master of Science in integrative oncology.

Her main field of work was palliative care, symptom management and integrative medicine.  At the university, she is now responsible for the Master of Advanced Studies in Oncological Nursing and for the certificate programme in Integrative and Complementary Treatment Approaches.