Night cna oncology position

[sierracast]

Hi everyone, I've been a CNA for 4 years now and have been doing private duty nursing (part time). I have to drive 45 mins to work and back four times a week and it's a lot of wear and tear on my car. I'm looking into applying for a fulltime position on the oncology floor at my local hospital so I can be closer to newborn and home. I know it's a completely different field and change of pace than what I'm doing now. Are there any oncology cnas here that can tell me what it's like to work there and how different is the day and night shift, I will be applying to both shifts hoping I'll hear back from one. Thanks in advance :-)

[AAOnc22]

I am a BMT/heme/onc nurse now but worked as an oncology CNA (as well as on other floors) before becoming a nurse. working with oncology patients is really rewarding but can be difficult as well. In my experience, a lot of oncology patients are more independent than patients on a lot of other floors. Often times they are patients who are live at home but are having complications/side effects with their treatment and need extra attention. So you have patients you can chat with quite a bit and patients who can do a lot of things for themselves. You will deal with cleaning up things like diarrhea (including Cdiff...) vomiting, oral secretions, etc. with these patients. they will be very fatigued so you may need to help them with ADLs from time to time. you will also have the patients who have totally given up and want you to do everything for them. or you may have the patients who have neurotoxicity from chemo who are confused or combative (rarely). Other than that it's a lot of talking and comforting patients, LOTS of cleaning because they are immunocompromised, and helping to encourage these patients to get back on their feet. Unforunatley, oncology patients die, and on some floors you deal with that pretty often. You will have to get comfortable with post-mortem care but your training will cover that.

Nights can definitley be slower than days. A lot of the times its just getting vital signs and answering call lights at night. Sometimes post-mortem care.

Days can be busy. you'll get vitals, help with showers if needed, answer call lights, help with meals if needed, help with making sure things are clean, and helping patients walk the halls if they are not totally independent.