RADIATION_RN

I took the OCN in July of last year and passed. While I did not think it was crazy difficult, it was one of those tests where I had no idea how I did until I hit the "submit" button and it said passed. I took the all day review course offered by the NOEP. It was a great review. You can basically view all of the same material from the comfort of your own home on their website under the OCN review sources and it has lots of videos!

Thank you! I have only taken Professional Nursing A&B and am now halfway through Holistic Care of Older Adult. I was planning on saving Research until the very end just because of the horror stories I have heard about people getting stuck with awful group members. I am so relieved that UTA listened and did away with it.

Sorry to but in, but is the rumor true, research no longer requires any group work?

I just took my OCN exam in July and passed! Yay! I went to an all day review class a few weeks before and that helped me a lot. Then I studied the free material and videos on noep.org which re-inforce that material. I also purchased the Oncology Nursing Core Curriculum Study Guide and a yellow workbook called OCN Secrets which had a great practice test with answer rationales. Good luck!

You can search the threads on here for some of the answers from students whom have taken Gen Ed classes through UTA. The consensus is pretty much to avoid the History classes and Math classes as they are insanely time consuming and difficult. I needed 5 gen ed classes and I took 3 of them (Stats, US History, and Art Appreciation) through a local community college over this past summer and they transferred fine and they were about 1/3 the cost. The remaining 2 (Texas History and Literature) I plan to take at the same college online this next summer.

I see that all the time unfortunately and we don't have wound care nurses as my clinic is not in a hospital setting. What our rad oncs recommend is keeping the area as clean as possible, they are big users of Domeboro soaks, Silvadene to help fight infection and then Mepilex dressings to help heal. If it gets really severe, the rad oncs usually will put the patients on a treatment break.

Congrats everyone! I graduated ACC in December 2012 and I remember all of this excitement! ACC has an EXCELLENT program and their students are highly respected.

I am going through the online RN-BSN program at UT Arlington. 99% of the nursing classes are 5 weeks long, so you can work as fast or slow as you want. The first class, which is the one I just finished, is 10 weeks long and it was pretty easy. Like someone said above, it's not difficult, my program really focuses on nursing theory, research, and yes fluff classes. They really beat APA format into your head. Seems to be a prep for nurses who want to go into management, but then again I have only just completed the first class. The thing I didn't like was the discussion boards. We had to do so many required discussion board postings that it got so tedious after the first couple weeks. But like someone else said, grin and bear it and meet the requirements.

Welcome to oncology! I am in outpatient oncology also but in the radiation side of it. Every new specialty takes time to gain confidence. My outlook is that as nurses, we never stop learning and we will learn new things everyday. Helpful tip which helped me, investing in the Core Curriculum for Oncology Nursing book. Great book that covers everything an oncology nurse needs to know. Of course you can only learn so much from a book, the majority of your knowledge will come from on the job. We've all been there and it will get more familiar with everything!

Clinicals aren't required because you are already an RN. I believe the Capstone course, the last course of the program, you may need to shadow a nurse manager, but that it all.

No actual lectures, just short videos for each week and honestly the videos were enough of a recap of important material so you could successfully do the quizzes and/or discussion board for that particular week. If you click under "resources" there should be supplemental material for every week. You will get used to it as you go. I printed the calendar with the due dates and at the end of every week I made sure I had completed and turned in everything that was on the calendar. The first part of every week's discussion posting is usually due on Wednesday nights and then you have to reply to two classmates by Sunday evening to count for the participation grade. APA format was my biggest adjustment, and they will nit pick you until you get it right. That little purple book about APA the right way was the only book I used for the class. The majority of the assigned readings were found on the UTA library nursing resources section. How to access them is in your week 1 resources tab.

I just finished that course. I was used to the online format since I chose as many online courses as I could through nursing pre-reqs. I don't enjoy sitting in a class and having teachers read power points to me. With that in mind, as tech savy as I am, the online format they use at UTA did take me some getting used to. Here is what I did that helped keep organized : I printed the calender which has all of your assignments and due dates each week. There is usually between 4-5 assignments due each week. You will become well versed in APA format, you have to do a journal entry each week, don't forget about that, and you will live on the discussion boards...excessively so. It was a long 10 weeks but I've heard it is the easiest class of all of them.

You can look on the website and they are divided up by alphabet of the student's last name

Nobody ever called me, I took a shot and looked up my advisor and sent her an email. She responded within a couple days and then asked me to send the very detailed information about the classes they overlooked and everything was fixed within a week.

The provisional acceptance is immediate after they verify your RN license, I applied at the beginning of May and received provisional acceptance within a couple days and was told I could go ahead and register for Technical Writing and Professional A&B and hopefully start with the 6/30/14 class. Well, after reading some horror stories on here of UTA not accepting certain classes I didn't want to commit without knowing for certain so I kept waiting. I kept getting phone calls reminding me of the registration deadline and I had sent emails to the department to no avail. Once the 6/30 passed, I went ahead and registered and sure enough, within a few days of registering they did my transfer credit report. I obtained my ADN through ACC and they missed a few things which I did have to send a very detailed email with the ACC course description and they gave me credit a few days later. Turns out the speech class I took at ACC transferred to UTA as the Technical Writing so I was able to drop that. Yay! I took my Stats class, US Government, and Art Appreciation at a community college this summer while waiting to get those out of the way.

Question for anyone, I applied at the beginning of May, had someone from UTA actually call me while I was still in the process of filling out the application. Told her I was interested in possibly starting for the 6/30/14 classes and she said that might be pushing it but could be possible. I had both of my college transcripts sent electronically, one from a University in Texas where I took some Gen Ed classes years ago and the other from my community college here in Texas where I received my ADN. Those went through fine, received an email with login instructions and set up my MyMav mail account. Did not receive another email for the rest of the month of May so I went ahead an emailed, called, and never heard back. So I decided to take three more Gen Ed classes I was lacking this summer. Finally, a couple weeks before the June 30th deadline I get an email saying I was provisionally accepted. I deferred and decided I would start during the 8/11/14 session instead. So I registered for Professional Nursing A&B and Technical Writing but I have not heard back about which classes UTA will transfer. Any idea in how long this will take?

I am starting it also along with Technical Writing!!

Hi! Don't know if it's too late and you already had your phone interview but just in case here are some helpful tips on questions you can ask : 1) How many linear accelerators (radiation machines) are in your clinic? 2) On average, how many daily patients come in to receive treatment? 3) What types of brachytherapy (internal radiation) procedures do you administer? Breast brachytherapy, GYN, prostate, etc? 4) How many radiation oncologists are in the clinic? 5) What is the procedure for nursing assessments for the weekly on treatment visits? 6) Is there a radiation medical assistant?

That totally seems excessive. I'm sorry you are dealing with that.

Yeah that does sound weird. I work in an outpatient radiation clinic and I prep the charts to make sure everything is in there for the docs. Then I read the referring doctors dictations so I can get a basic overview of why the patient is coming to see us then of course, during the nursing consult I have the patient tell their story in their own words. Our nursing intial assessment form is a document in our electronic medical record which does contain a brief nursing summary of "history of diagnosis" but it is usually short and sweet. Like for a standard breast consult it goes something like this : Hx - abnormal routine mammogram, breast US, breast biopsy, lumpectomy confirmed right breast invasive ductal carcinoma upper outer quadrant 0/3 nodes positive, ER/PR +, HER2 -, here to discuss breast radiation options, followed by medical oncology consult for 5 year hormone therapy. Of course it would get a little more detailed depending on patient but that is the gist of what we the nurses do. It is the doctors' responsibility to go into more detail and our rad oncs do. As radiation oncology nurses at our clinic, it is our responsibility to assess, educate (we give out great patient info from National Cancer Institute and ASTRO), as well as side effects management.

Oncology! Specifically, outpatient radiation oncology. One other RN and me managing about 65 daily radiation patients with two full-time radiation oncologists. In addition to that, new patient consults, education, follow-ups, and special radiation procedures. I thought I might lose some of my skills working outpatient but we do IV starts for hydration, port-a-cath accessing daily, trach suctioning if needed before treatment, and conscious sedation for our GYN internal radiation treatments. I take my ACLS in May so I can actually do those along with the bone marrow biopsies we sedate in office. Most of all, love love love my co-workers and doctors. 99% of us have been with one of the radiation oncologists for 8 years or more. My co-workers and I have worked together for so long we really do feel like a big family and our patients see that and they love it. Due to most radiation treatments requiring at least 6-8 weeks of treatment we really get to know our patients. I will admit it is so nice to meet a nervous patient for consult, help aleviate their fears, answer their questions, and then see them all the way through their treatment and even for the years after when they come for follow up visits. Of course as ya'll might guess, this can lead to super happy moments but also super tragic and sad moments. Wouldn't change it for the world!

I had heard that too and took mine on a Tuesday and by the very following Thursday less than 48 hours later it was updated. So maybe for you, as soon as Tuesday. You'll definitely have the quick results before then though.

Yes those Kaplan scores are good! I did Hurst and Kaplan. I took my exam 1/29 and shut off at 75 questions and passed! Honestly, the Kaplan tests and questions are WAY more difficult than the NCLEX. And no, you will never feel prepared enough. I'm not sure if it's possible to not be nervous going in to take the test. lol! Just breathe, take your time, and try to imagine it as just another nursing test. That is what I did and it helped me, although my heart rate didn't slow until probably question 25. I really felt most prepared using the Kaplan practice tests and quizzes. You'll do great!!!

I took mine on 1/29 and did the same. I don't remember the exact number of SATA, I was too nervous to count, but I know it was at least in the 20's, a few drag and drop, a couple pictures, only one med calculation. I would be so happy to see a SATA question because I knew I was doing something right. But then I would get nervous when I answered a SATA and then it sent me to a regular multiple choice question. lol. Mine shut off at 75 questions too and I was in such shock I just sat there. Did the PVT and got the good pop up within 10 minutes of leaving the testing room. My name was on the Texas Board of Nursing 2 days later, even before the quick results. Wooohooo!! Feels great!

I never fully understood that whole decision tree thing. When it came down to the actual NCLEX I never once tried to use it. There were not any questions on there where I absoutely had no clue about the answers and felt like I needed to use it.