Senior Practicum in Oncology Unit

[Wendy_z]

I got placed in medical oncology unit for my senior practicum. I really wanted to go into Med-surg unit because I thought I could practice on a lot of nursing skills. Now, I'm worry because I'm not sure what hands-on care experience I can have as a nursing student in oncology unit. As per as my understanding, nursing students are not allowed to administer chemo drugs or any meds since the most of cancer patient care requires nurse with special certificates or training. So, I like to hear from you guys who also had practicum in oncology unit or nurse who work in oncology unit. Is there any hands-on care I can do as a nursing students in this floor?

Thanks!

[MotoMonkey, BSN, RN]

I am not on a medical oncology unit for my practicum, but another student in my cohort is. He describes it as being very med surge like, but the majority of your patients have cancer. From my understanding the only medications he is not allowed to give are chemo medications. Specific hospitals my have more strict rules regarding students on these units, however, I would expect that if there were strict rules keeping students from doing the most basic of nursing care and tasks, your school would not have placed you there.

[ShadowNurse]

You are not able to give chemotherapy, but a great deal of medical complications come from chemotherapy, radiation, and oncology surgery. At the very least you'll get experience with blood transfusions (anemia from the chemo), feeding tubes (lack of appetite and mouth sores from chemo), IV fluids (dehydration due to CINV), infection control protocol, assessing chronic and acute pain (from the cancer and its complications), plenty of chances to do neuro assessments for patients with CNS cancers, and more. Cancer is a full-body illness which is why many patients are admitted to a floor for their chemotherapy or for complications. In addition, it's rare for your patient to just have cancer if you are treating adults. You will encounter heart failure, chronic lung disease, diabetes, and other diagnoses that are common on any med-surg floor to complicate the cancer diagnosis.

(By the way, I'm not an oncology nurse, but I am an RN and was the primary caregiver for my partner through her cancer diagnosis and treatment.)

[DowntheRiver]

There is a lot to learn and do on a Medical Oncology floor! At my facility, students are not allowed to hang chemo or access ports but they do everything else student nurses do. Lots of assessments, medication passes, transfusions, and fluids. As a PP said, many patients have co-morbidities so don't think that will be excluded - you will still have patients who have diabetes, heart failure, asthma, COPD, kidney disease, Afib, etc. Plenty of chances to contact providers and work on SBAR or the like.

As an Oncology nurse, I can't imagine doing anything else. Who knows, maybe you will fall in love with it!

[CelticGoddess, BSN, RN]

I did my practicum on the bone marrow transplant unit (BMT) and at the hospital that I was at it was considered a critical care unit. Technically, I was not allowed to assess patients, but I did. I just couldn't document the assessment. I passed meds (non-chemo), started IV, pushed IV meds (including Narcan), hung TPN, and learned a lot more than some of my fellow classmates. It's going to about what YOU put into it.

Find out what you are allowed to do on the unit and go for it! YOu can learn a lot. Best of luck

[Daisy4RN]

I worked Oncology many years and we had students. You will get tons of hands on experience including some that you might not get on med-surg. Probably not too many IV starts (depending on the unit) as most have central lines/ports etc. Good luck!

[DiscGolfNurse, BSN]

There is LOTS to do on an oncology unit as a student. You also get to observe things that most students don't ever see. The beauty of being on a med-surg oncology unit is that you get med-surg, plenty of hands on skills, and in oncology you may observe more but you get to see things like accessing a port and administering chemo and taking care of an oncology patient. Volunteer for any opportunity thats available and offer to help anyone with any tasks they need assistance with and you will get so much out of it!