Beauchemin Awarded Oncology Nursing Society Grant

Assistant Professor Melissa Beauchemin, PhD ’19, has received funding from the Oncology Nursing Society to support her work to improve access to fertility preservation among adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer. 

The project, “Refining a Toolkit to Optimize Sperm Banking Access for Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer Treated in the Community Oncology Setting,” aims to make fertility preservation (FP) much more widely available to AYA patients, just a fraction of whom currently have access to FP discussions or services. 

“I am deeply grateful for this funding, which represents the critical next step in closing a long-standing gap in cancer care,” Beauchemin said. “This support will allow our team to develop a flexible, locally adaptable implementation toolkit to integrate fertility preservation across diverse oncology settings—especially in community practices where many young adults receive treatment.”  

Infertility due to cancer treatment remains a major, distressing problem among AYA patients. Despite national guidelines that recommend discussing FP before treatment with all post-pubertal cancer patients, this approach remains “vastly underused” due to barriers at multiple levels, Beauchemin noted.