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You're More Than Cancer to Christine Tapley and Her Team

November 9, 2023
Christina Tapley, RN

Beginning chemotherapy can feel daunting and even lonely to a cancer patient. GBMC charge nurse Christine Tapley, RN, and her team work to combat that and create a sense of community in the Infusion Center of the Sandra and Malcolm Berman Cancer Institute.

“We try to get to know patients beyond their cancer diagnosis,” she said. “There is a person there.”

Tapley and her team also strive to ensure each patient feels well cared for. While each patient has an assigned nurse, every nurse working in the Infusion Center is prepared to help every patient.

“If a patient has a question or needs something, any one of us will step up,” Tapley said. “There might be a few occasions when we need to check with their nurse, but when we can, we help.”

The goal is to remove any hesitation the patient might have in asking for what they need.

“We want to be sure patients know it’s OK to ask for help and to ask questions,” she said.

Understanding the reluctance, Tapley and her team are always on the lookout for ways to help. If a patient is consistently alone or seems to lack resources, the infusion nurse will ask a social worker to stop by to chat and see if there is more the Berman Cancer Institute team can do to help.

In her 35 years as an oncology nurse at GBMC, Tapley has also learned a patient’s distress is often disguised. The new patient who seems cranky or short tempered is often afraid of the unknowns ahead of them. Someone who is overly talkative is probably prompted by their anxiety. By being understanding and compassionate, she often helps patients relax and accept help. A sense of humor comes in handy, as well.

It can be hard to accept being tethered to an IV pole for the morning, for example. “I tell them it’s their new dance partner,” she said.

Tapley also recognizes celebrations are important to maintaining a sense of self during chemotherapy. She and her colleagues host a party for the Orioles’ Opening Day each year and rarely miss any other opportunity to bring fun into the Infusion Center, involving the patients at every turn. Patients have been invited to vote for the staff member with the best hat at Preakness time, join in dressing up for Halloween, and choose the ugliest sweater during the holiday season.

All of this happens in the midst of ensuring each patient receives the medications needed to treat their cancer promptly, correctly, and with the combination of professionalism and kindness the community has come to expect from the Berman Cancer Institute and GBMC.

Her role and years of experience inspired Berman Cancer Institute leaders to ask Tapley to participate in designing GBMC’s new home for cancer care, the Sandra R. Berman Pavilion. She is proud of the plans she has seen and is looking forward to welcoming patients to the new Herman and Walter Samuelson Infusion Center when it opens in early 2025.

This center and the Allan Parsons Infusion Center in the William E. Kahlert Physicians Pavilion North offer patients two hospital-adjacent options for receiving treatment. Both will enjoy lovely views; the open floor plan of the Parsons Center offers a sense of community.

When she is not taking care of patients, Tapley is apt to be found outdoors. She loves hiking and gardening. She and her husband, who is now retired, have a vacation home in the mountains outside Ashville, NC, where they can take long walks in the woods or go fishing in the pond, which she says is very peaceful.

For Tapley, time spent away is a bonus, more than a break.

“I love my job,” she said. “I love the patients and I love the staff I work with."

And, based on the comments of her colleagues and countless Infusion Center patients, that love is mutual.

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