ambulatory chemo RN - the good and bad?

[joiseygirl]

Hi All,

I have an interview coming up at Memorial Sloan Kettering for one of their ambulatory chemo units. Does anyone here have experience in this position that they could speak about? RN/patient ratios, stress level, unit culture, etc? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks :)

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

Is this an inpatient ward or a clinic?

[joiseygirl]

An outpatient clinic

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

The outpatient clinic I was in for a while was pretty hectic. There is a lot to know, especially if you're new to oncology, but it's a good experience. How long will you be on orientation?

[joiseygirl]

I believe it would be at least 3 months, but I have yet to get the exact details. Were you new to oncology at that point in your career or did you already have experience?

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

I was new to chemo, fairly new to oncology (maybe 6 months experience). I would think 3 months would be sufficient.

[joiseygirl]

Thanks for your feedback :)

[joiseygirl]

btw, SoldierNurse, when you say hectic... well what does that mean to you? Can you elaborate a little on the pace/stress level of things?

[SoldierNurse22, BSN, RN]

Hmm...hectic. Let me try to better describe the environment.

I was just learning chemo drugs and my preceptors expected a lot of me. That was intimidating because there are many drugs to learn and most of them I was hearing for the first time. There was no way I was going to be able to memorize all the side effects and labs that I needed to check beforehand, but some of my preceptors expected this. THAT was probably the most annoying part.

The pace itself was very fast, but I found some of the nurses to be disorganized with their time. I recall a few days where we sat down only briefly for lunch, but we wasted time running around and doing things we didn't need to do. I think a lot of it was finding a groove and a level of comfort with the environment, as is normally the case.