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Nursing Advancements
April 29, 2008 |
Thanks to a nationwide nursing shortage, there’s been a local decline in the
number of highly qualified nurses. Anne
Holt is the Director of Oncology nursing for Lee Cancer Care she says they are
stepping up resources to make sure nurses are well trained. “We have new nurses who are right out of
nursing school or only have one to two years experience so we recognized last
year that we really needed to bring the core curriculum back.” So that’s why
hundreds of oncology nurses are hitting the books. Over a period of about eight months the
nurses-turned-students will take part in an 80 hour class designed to make them
better prepared whey they’re at your bedside.
Anne says, “The system supports them taking this class. They get paid while they’re here they have
textbooks; they have homework so it’s really like going to school. It takes them from basic to advanced
oncology nursing. It covers all cancers.” For cancer care in particular, nurses need
to be prepared for anything. Dr. James
Orr is the Medical Director of Lee Cancer Care.
He says, “Not only are the physical but the emotional aspects of oncology
so dramatically different from any other diseases.” Anne agrees that treating cancer can be
more complex. “The patient with cancer
has a disease that affects the ole body.
So although they may have kidney cancer or ovarian cancer you have to have very
solid skills. It really requires advanced
training for the basic nurse.” There are
nurses from every Lee Memorial Health System facility currently enrolled in the
curriculum. One main goal is to get all
the nurses in Lee Memorial Health System on the same page when it comes to
patient care. “It’s a system wide
approach that’s clearly designed to improve the educational aspects around all
those involved in care so that one can create the very best outcome for every
man and woman with cancer in the system,” says Dr. Orr. The core curriculum is designed to be
given to nurses in Lee County every five years.
The curriculum follows the guidelines set by the Oncology Nursing
Society. |
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