Innovation, Creation, Inspiration.

doi: 10.1188/16.ONF.131-132 The end of each year and the beginning of the next usually involves the media printing lists of what was talked about in the past year and what is going to be “hot” in the coming 12 months. The world of oncology is no different. MedPageToday conducted a nonscientific survey of readers (Sergel, 2015), asking oncologists what game changers they saw in 2015. Seventy-four percent said that the use of immunotherapy in different cancers had changed the playing field and was a s igni f icant breakthrough in t reatment for many patients. This is great news for oncologists, patients, and their families. For so long, changes in practice were about tweaking this and modifying that, and, with the introduction of new therapies, innovation that has application in clinical practice is a meaningful advance. Although we did not know about the results of the survey at the time, the Editorial Board of the Oncology Nursing Forum identified immunotherapy as a hot topic in mid-2015 and sought out manuscripts on the topic. You can see three of these articles in the pages of this issue, reflecting new nursing knowledge on the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors. I’ve been thinking about innovation recently. How can I innovate the way I do the work I do? It is more than providing better care for my patients because when I do the same things over and over in the same way, I tend to get bored, and boredom is not a state of being that I enjoy. So there is some selfishness in my motivation to be more creative. I need to be engaged and excited about coming to work every day (and I am 98% of the time); I hope that most of us do. One of my few out-of-work interests is fine dining, and I follow a number of chefs on social media. Food and restaurants is one area in which innovation can be seen, and the creativity of these chefs is something that inspires and often amazes me. When eating in some of the restaurants I have been privileged to visit (and I am more than willing to share the names and locations offline), I have literally been rendered speechless at the beauty and originality of what has been set before me on the plate. And more than once, I have actually been brought to tears. There’s a cancer connection to this experience too; chef Grant Achatz and his business partner, Nick Kokonas, of the Chicago restaurant Alinea have written movingly about Achatz’s experience with stage IV tongue cancer (Achatz & Kokonas, 2012). Of course, I know that putting food on a plate (or many plates) is very different from the work we do as oncology nurses, educators, and researchers. But I have learned some lessons from these chefs that I think about often and deeply and challenge myself as to how these may translate into my own professional life. For so long, changes in practice were about tweaking this and modifying that, and with the introduction of new therapies, innovation that has application in clinical practice is a meaningful advance.