bottomsup

I work in an 18 chair outpatient facility. The turnaround time can vary based upon patient load as well as who the pharmacist is on a particular day. Generally speaking, we have our pre-meds up within 5-10 minutes and the chemo back in approximately 15-20 minutes. However, there are some pharmacists who will mix everything they have to mix and bring it out all at once for 3 - 5 patients, delaying the earliest patients by as much as 30-45 minutes. This is very frustrating to the nurses. We are fortunate that we don't have to deal with faxing orders; the pharmacists are available to us and can expedite when we need them to.

At our outpatient clinic convenience dictates that we start the Taxol/Carbo first as the CBC results are generally back before the UA dip for protein which we need before we can administer the Avastin (that's when the docs remember to order the UA dip!!! then its another delay for that to occur)

I worked for almost a year in a similar situation, with nurses leaving every couple of months. I was six months out of nursing school and became the lead nurse - mixing, triaging, administering chemo. The doctor in charge of the clinic just didn't want to spend the money on the clinic infrastructure, and thought that we were just inefficient at what we did. There was seldom a day where I didnt put in 12 hours and get paid for 8. I finally left after 11 months because I felt it was too unsafe. I am now working in another oncology clinic with 8 doctors that has multiple sites across the country. One of my prerequisites was that there be a more structured environment, and I feel totally safe now. We staff the clinic according to need, and there is never less than two chemo nurses and one triage nurse. If you can't your physician/nurse manager/or office manager to get you some qualified help, I say run as fast as you can. They should be advertising for ONC nurses, too. Good luck to you ---

We have nine chairs in our outpatient clinic, and two RN's, but we also have to mix our own chemo, so sometimes it gets very hectic, as the nurse on the floor is left to do telephone triage, prescriptions, hang the chemo, access/deaccess the ports/IVs etc. We're looking for more nurses...anybody interested in North Texas?

The nurses where I work prefer Silky Scubs which have the added benefit of no ironing! http://www.uniformcity.com/go.asp?prog=lvl2&mktlvl1=M2000&mktlvl2=240&lvl2desc=Silky%20Scrubs&mktlvl3=&lvl3desc=&cont1=Y&pg=&currpg=

What state are you located in? I landed an Oncology Infusion position right out of nursing school...they paid for my 2 day ONS certification course. We could use some help here where I am....

One of the first things you should do is get chemo 'certified' by taking the ONS 2 day chemo certification course. You can find local course offerings on the ONS website. If you have not joined ONS, you should --- they are an invaluable resource for CE credits, and pointers on administering chemotherapy and caring for cancer patients and their families. After several months, you'll be amazed at how much you've absorbed --- it all seems so foreign to you now, but you'll catch on quickly!

You will have many experiences in your nursing clinicals, so I wouldn't pin my hopes on any one area until you've been through several. I work in an ambulatory oncology infusion office and it is very, very busy. It's rewarding to see the patients who go into remission, but also very hard to lose patients from time to time. It's also constantly changing so you need to be flexible and open to new advances in the field.

Excellent, excellent questions. I left a job after 20+ years in IT to pursue a nursing degree, and now 6 mos into an oncology nursing positing, am thinking of integrating the two pursuits. These questions are essential and thought provoking!!

Do you have the option of choosing the needle length, 3/4 vs 1 inch? I find that the 1 inch saves the day on larger men or women who have ports that are implanted more deeply in the breast tissue.

Graduated proudly at age 54. Making half the money I was before, but am 10 times happier.

Interesting discussion. But I haven't heard anyone else say that they may have entered nursing because their SO or DH didn't need nurturing, and perhaps the reason nursing appealed to them was that they had a need to nurture that wasn:idea: 't being met at home. Anyone else onboard with this idea?