Patricia Leighton is a native of Hollywood Florida, the youngest of three daughters of a very large, loving Italian family. Patricia’s love of Oncology began with the completion of a Certified Medical Assistant course in 1983. Her first job was in an Oncology physicians practice, where her responsibilities included fingerstick CBCs, rooming patients, mixing and preparing doses of chemotherapy within a wooden open-door pantry for the RNs. During this time, Patricia knew she had fallen in love with the patient care concepts and science of oncology nursing. Patricia began her nursing career in 1989 as an Associate Degree RN. Her initial 18 years of nursing experience included time spent in inpatient, stem cell transplant, home health nursing, Case management and oncology physician practice. Patricia relocated to Greenville South Carolina in 2008 beginning her employment at Greenville Health System Cancer Institute (GHS-CI) as an Oncology ambulatory infusion nurse. From 2008-2012, Patricia continued her fulltime position in Ambulatory infusion while completing her undergraduate and graduate studies in nursing, and then taught nursing at Greenville Technical college.
In 2012, Patricia was recruited as the very first Survivorship Nurse Navigator to help assist in the birth of the new department dedicated to survivorship care, “The Center for Integrative Oncology and Survivorship” at GHS-CI. Since then, Patricia has led initiatives including developing departmental survivorship processes, developing and transforming home grown survivorship care plan (SCP) templates, tracking quality initiatives and metrics including patient satisfaction, collaborating with the cancer registry for SCP development, tracking survivorship metrics with reporting for Commission on Cancer 3.3 deliverable. Patricia has been a member of AONN+ since 2014 and was a participant in the inaugural AONN certification exam held in Las Vegas, 2016.
Patricia’s publications and presentations include:
- “Development and Implementation of Electronic Measurement Process for Survivorship Care Plan Dissemination and Compliance” American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), 2017
- “Electronic Generation of Survivorship Care Plans in an Academic Setting” South Carolina Cancer Alliance (SCCA) Evidence Academy, 2017
- “Cancer Center Profile: Center for Integrative Oncology and Survivorship at the Greenville Health System Cancer Institute” The Oncology Nurse-APN/PA, November 2016, Vol 9, No 6
- “Long-term Cancer Survivorship Nurse Practitioner Care Model Promotes Patient Quality of Life” American Nurse Today Nursing Journal, June 2015, Vol 10, No 6
- “Development of a Survivorship Program in an Academic Medical Center” Oncology Nursing Society Special Interest Group (SIG) newsletter , March 2014
- “Cancer Survivorship” American Nurse Today Nursing Journal September 2014, Vol 9, No 9
Center for Integrative Oncology & Survivorship
