Help Please! Oncology Infusion or School Nurse?

Specialties Oncology

Published

Hello Everyone,

I need some advice from fellow nurses. I have been a nurse for 4 years. I was on a med surg/onc floor for 3.5 years. I just recently transferred within my hospital organization to a med surg tele floor at one of our sister hospitals closer to home. I cut my commute from 45+ minutes to now 10 minutes from home. My commute is awesome but I am no longer working with with onc patients which is where my passion lies. Since I became a nurse I always wanted to focus on oncology or school nursing. After almost four years of bedside nursing I'm ready for a change. I don't enjoy my job anymore and don't feel a passion for bedside nursing. I feel anxiety about work, we are often out of ratio/short staffed, and lately I dread going.

Im at point where I'm going back and fourth on what I should do. School nursing or outpatient oncology/infusion. Both have pros and cons. I have a friend that works for a school district and they have expressed they'd like me to apply. The school nursing con is I would take a huge pay cut, and would be back to commuting. $30,000 less a year. Yikes. But the perks are more time with my kids, being able to get to my sons games, summers off, holidays and weekends off.

There is an oncology office that is looking for an infusion RN. Infusion perks: passionate about oncology, no weekends, no nights or holidays, $6 more an hour than what I currently make. Cons: commute, I'd miss most my sons sports activities.

(Both of these positions are monday thru friday and both have about 40-60 commute).

I'd love to hear input from my oncology/infusion nurses.

1)What do you like/dislike about Ocnology Infusion?

2) Tell me what is a typical day like?

3) Last but not least...what would you do if you were me?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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I work in a clinic/outpatient infusion center and love it. I fully plan on this being my forever job. We have 6 chemo nurses with one being "the mixer" for the day, leaving 5 on the floor barring vacations/illnesses. We see between 30-40 a day, I'd say. Now that can be FOLFIRINOX or Xgeva's and all in between. We don't have a charge nurse, you take what you can safely handle, ie: I could have a FOLFOX, Keytruda, and ABVD all going at once, not all need my attention at the same time. In between we do walk-med disconnects, port flushes, injections.

We do our own pre-auths for insurance and all education for new treatments. It's varied and busy and I love it.

We also do hematology so there are occasional Injectafers and phlebotomies thrown in.

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Hello Jenapos,

I know its been a while but I was curious about your choice and how you are enjoying your new job. I have experience in both specialties and can say that my Infusion Unit position is one that I love and wished I had explored much earlier in my worklife. Hope you are enjoying your choice as much as I am mine.

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The school nurse job with over a $30,000 pay cut plus having to pay about $1000 a month for benefits wasn't going to work for my family. My company now pays my familys benefits which is huge! I ended up transferring within my company to one of our sister hospitals. It is a small hospital closer to home and I'm on a med surg tele floor. They are in the process of opening an infusion center so I have my eye on that and hope to be using my oncology/chemo certification in the near future. In fact my old manager is helping to open it. Anyhow, I did make a change and am now only 10 minutes from work vs the hour I was driving before. Just a different change then I was originally thinking.

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