“I think the key in effective communication is building trust, because without trust, patients are not likely to engage in their care as effectively, which can influence patient well-being and their overall health outcomes. Building trust is, I think, crucial,” Deb Christensen, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, AOCNS, founder and chief patient officer at the Cancer Help Desk, a nonprofit that provides personalized cancer treatment resources, told Jaime Weimer, MSN, RN, AGCNS-BS, AOCNS®, manager of oncology nursing practice at ONS, during a discussion about strategies oncology nurses can use when approaching difficult conversations with patients across all populations.   You can earn free NCPD contact hours after listening to this episode and completing the evaluation linked below.   Music Credit: “Fireflies and Stardust” by Kevin MacLeod  Licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0  Earn 0.75 contact hours of nursing continuing professional development (NCPD), which may be applied to the oncology nursing practice ILNA category, by listening to the full recording and completing an evaluation at myoutcomes.ons.org by November 24, 2025. The planners and faculty for this episode have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose. ONS is accredited as a provider of NCPD by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.  Learning outcome: The learner will report an increase in knowledge related to difficult conversations in cancer care.  Episode Notes  Complete this evaluation for free NCPD. Deb Christensen’s ONS Voice articles about communication  Oncology Nursing Podcast:  Episode 14: Having Difficult Conversations in Oncology Practice  Episode 208: How to Have Fertility Preservation Conversations With Your Patients  Episode 235: Self-Advocacy Skills for Patients  Episode 253: The Ethics of Caring for People You Know Personally  Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing articles:  Tools for Communication: Novel Infrastructure to Address Patient-Perceived Gaps in Oncology Care  Breaking Bad News: An Evidence-Based Review of Communication Models for Oncology Nurses  ONS Resources:  Palliative Care Communication Strategies  Shared Decision Making in Prostate Cancer  Journal of Oncology Practice article: Role of Kindness in Cancer Care  SPIKES: A Framework for Breaking Bad News to Patients With Cancer   Ask-Tell-Ask method  City of Hope: The Interprofessional Communication Curriculum  Center to Advance Palliative Care   Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Health Literacy Universal Precautions   To discuss the information in this episode with other oncology nurses, visit the ONS Communities.    To find resources for creating an ONS Podcast Club in your chapter or nursing community, visit the ONS Podcast Library.  To provide feedback or otherwise reach ONS about the podcast, email pubONSVoice@ons.org.  Highlights From Today’s Episode  “Patients tend to be less anxious when they have a trusting relationship with their providers, with their oncology team on a whole, and they tend to follow through better on their treatment plan because they trust what you’re saying. It’s not easy to establish a trusting relationship when you first meet someone. But what I found in my practice is that anticipating their needs and really listening to their story has made a world of difference in establishing that trusting relationship—and admitting if I don’t know the answer to something or if perhaps I’ve gotten something wrong.” TS 2:32  “Intellectual empathy asks you to imagine yourself in that person’s place. And we’ve all had challenging experiences; we just don't get through life without them. And as a result, we can generally think of a time when we might have been in a similar situation, maybe not exactly the same, but a similar situation, and garner that empathy for the patient and, importantl