Claudia Auerbach, APRN, is a pediatric nurse practitioner who treats children with hematologic, or blood, disorders and cancer with a particular focus on leukemia and survivorship care
Auerbach says she always knew she wanted to pursue a career in pediatric health care but didn’t decide to specialize in oncology until nursing school.
“I enjoy working with children because of their resilience and how I get to take care of not just the patient, but their family,” Auerbach says. “There’s a wonderful educational piece to my work, and I get to develop strong relationships with families over years.””
Oncology care for children has benefited from many advances in recent years, she points out.
“Progress in childhood cancer therapy has improved overall survival rates to over 80%,” Auerbach says. “The children I treat are so strong and have so much hope. It is truly inspiring. I enjoy the opportunity to develop incredible relationships with patients and their families. From helping them to understand the initial diagnosis to working with them on medications and side effects and understanding everything they need to know about their treatment regimen.”
Auerbach is also involved with the HEROS (Health, Education, Research, Outcomes for Survivors of Childhood Cancer) clinic. “This is a specialty clinic that provides comprehensive care to survivors of childhood cancer,” she says. “It’s gratifying to see patients through the continuum of care, from diagnosis to completion of treatment and beyond. In the HEROS clinic, we monitor for late effects of treatment and help to optimize survivors’ overall health.”
