RN on Stem Cell Unit

[Teaieal]

I am not. That is why I am curious as to what are exactly do you do on a Stem Cell Unit? What is the population: peds, adult, geriatric, all? Is this a branch of Oncology, and do you explicitly need to have an Onc background? I am assuming to expect ltransfusions and transplants, and hence isolation areas. I tried google and it seems to allude that this is mostly Ped-Onc floor. It is different hearing and reading about first-hand experience though. I would love to hear more if anyone out there works here :)

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

I work in a blood and marrow transplant unit. My facility has a pads and adult BMTU. I work in the adult one. Our age ranges from 18-70. You won't see much older than 70 as it's a difficult treatment and people older than that just can't handle it.

We take usually 3 patients a shift. We do high acuity patients- step down type stuff. We'll do pressors and other cardiac drips, insulin drips, bipap, etc. We won't take patients that are ventilated or require an art line.

All of our patients have central lines for the most part. We given chemo as their prep regimen, and lots of blood and platelets while we support them through count recovery. Lots of TPN. Lots of drawing blood cultures and giving antibiotics.

We only isolate patients if they have an organism that requires isolation, i.e., MRSA or c diff, so it's really not more isolation than the general population. We have a special hepa filter system that protects the patients. All single rooms.

Oncology experience would be good. We're all require to hold ONS chemo/biotherapy certification, and OCN and ONS membership are strongly encouraged. It definitely counts as a branch of oncology, though not all of out patients have cancer. Some have blood disorders such as aplastic anemia.

Let me know if you have any more specific questions.