Pediatric Oncology Nursing

Specialties Pediatric

Published

hello..i am currently a junior in highschool and have always wanted to work in a hospital doing something with children. i am still quite confused on what i want to do but one thing that has caught my eye was pediatric oncology. i have looked into the field and the more i read the more i become interested. i still have some questions though. how many years of school does it take?what do i major in? what exactly does a pediatric oncology nurse do? if anyone has these answers can you please respond back to me. thankyou.

angela :wink2:

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Hello Angela:

Glad to hear you are interested in nursing and specifically pediatric oncology nursing. Well first of all you would need to go to nursing school. You have a couple of options. You can get an associate degree in nursing which takes about 2 to 3 years and can be done at a community college or you can get your bachelor of science degree in nursing and can be done at a university and will take a minimum of 4 years. When you graduate nursing school then you will take a big test and then you will be licensed as an RN.

Nursing school is very general. They will go over most specialties of nursing, but it will be very generalized. When you graduate school and get a job as an RN then the hospital that hires you will put you through an internship which may last several months and during this time you will be with an experienced nurse who will teach you about your chosen specialty such as pediatric oncology. Not all hospitals offer internships, but most of the large hospitals do. You would have to look into your local Children's hospitals. My suggestion would be to call up all the Children's hospitals in your area and ask about volunteering or maybe they would allow you to follow around a pediatric oncology nurse for a day. At the hospital I work at we have high school students that get to do rotations through are unit. They are in some sort of health science program through their school.

I do not work in pediatric oncology, but I was interested in it at one time. I know it is a VERY CHALLENGING, INTENSE, and REWARDING area of nursing.

Good luck to you!!

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