Providing Care and Listening With Compassion During Cancer

Erin Mensching, B.S.N., B.A., RN, OCN, is the senior manager of the Patient Navigation Center (PNC) at the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF). She is passionate about helping guide patients with myeloma and their caregivers through the journey following diagnosis, and she is dedicated to advancing research opportunities for the entire myeloma community.

Since joining the MMRF, Erin has done a tremendous job building out the PNC and managing the two other patient navigators employed by the MMRF: Grace Allison, who joined in June 2020, and Brittany Hartmann, who joined in June 2021.

The team is highly cohesive and collaborative, largely due to Erin’s leadership and management style. The ability for patients to pick up the phone and talk to the same patient navigator each time is incredibly important because a cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming and unpredictable. Having this consistency creates structure and makes the journey feel a little more navigable.

The PNC team members describe Erin as an empathetic and supportive leader. Because the management of myeloma is a rapidly changing field, Erin encourages them to continue their education of the disease so they can be effective in their interactions with patients and caregivers and help combat misinformation.

Erin exemplifies compassionate listening. Recently, she handled a case involving a woman in her 40s who had been diagnosed late and was in critical condition. The patient’s sister contacted the MMRF because the patient was in excruciating pain and said she did not want to live much longer. She was at a small community hospital in Florida, so one of the first things Erin advised was to transfer her to a larger myeloma center where she could get better treatment. For several weeks, Erin was in frequent communication with the patient’s sister, even on weekends outside of regular PNC hours. Because the patient’s condition was so severe, however, she was unable to be transferred, so Erin shared guidance on how to manage her pain. Unfortunately, the patient ended up passing away. What Erin did for the patient and her family was above and beyond — and she does this with hundreds of patients and families every year.

Prior to joining the MMRF, Erin served on the Patient Council Committee at Norwalk Hospital, and she is a member of the Oncology Nursing Society. Erin is a graduate of Fairfield University’s School of Nursing and earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a registered oncology nurse for 11 years. Erin also is a yoga enthusiast and instructor and recommends yoga as a way for patients to unwind.

Earlier in her career, Erin was a health care representative for Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis. After several years, she realized that the travel and lifestyle were not for her. Erin’s mother had been a nurse, so she elected to go back to school to switch to the patient-facing side. She spent a lot of time working in hospice, where her intuition and ability to read people made her very good at guiding people who had to make end-of-life decisions, ensuring their wishes were put in place way in advance of crisis. Erin is often sought out by the patient navigators for guidance around end-of-life care.

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