WCLC 2025 - Posters & ePosters-EP.15.10 Do Enhanced Recovery After Lung Cancer Surgery Programs Risk Putting Primacy of Caring at Stake?

Pdf Summary

This study by Malene Missel investigates nurses’ experiences with Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) programs in lung cancer surgery from a nursing perspective, focusing on how these programs affect the primacy of caring in clinical practice. ERAS aims to streamline care and accelerate recovery, emphasizing efficiency and protocol-driven tasks. Nurses play a central role in implementing ERAS but often find their relational, dialogue-based care is diminished.<br /><br />Using a hermeneutic approach with 16 thoracic surgery nurses via focus group interviews and analysis grounded in Benner’s Primacy of Caring theory, the research reveals tensions between evidence-based, standardized protocols and addressing patients’ individual lifeworlds—i.e., their unique contexts and psychosocial needs. Nurses described working within ERAS as “like working in a factory,” which, while efficient, can feel dehumanizing as the focus shifts from personalized care to completing tasks.<br /><br />The findings emphasize that individual patient needs and vulnerability risk being overlooked in favor of standardized flows. Nurses advocate for continued specialized, reflective care post-discharge to better reconnect with patients’ contexts and maintain person-centered care values.<br /><br />The study concludes that without critical ethical reflection, ERAS programs may inadvertently compromise the primacy of caring by prioritizing efficiency over presence and responsiveness to patient values. Balancing accelerated pathways with sustained, compassionate nursing practice is essential to ensure care remains holistic and patient-centered amid protocol-driven systems. Nurses highlight that while ERAS benefits recovery processes physiologically, it must remain flexible to account for patients requiring more attentive, individualized care.

Asset Subtitle

Malene Missel

Meta Tag

Speaker Malene Missel

Topic Multidisciplinary Care: Nursing, Allied Health and Palliative Care

Keywords

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery

ERAS

lung cancer surgery

nursing perspective

primacy of caring

standardized protocols

patient-centered care

ethical reflection

thoracic surgery nurses

hermeneutic approach