PHo Tos CoUr Tesy of THe onCoLogy nUrsIng soCIe Ty
the first round of chemotherapy for a patient with a high presence of cancer in his body. If not, the patient could suffer kidney
damage or even failure.
“They know to take measures proactively to keep the kidneys
open and flowing so that person’s body can rid itself of all cancer,”
Tanner explains.
Tipping the scales for survival
Not everyone has access to cancer-specialist centers like Texas’s
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Sloan-Kettering Medical Center
in New York City. Most people get care where they live – but many
communities have sparse medical services, and hospitals are being
forced to cut back and close their cancer floors. Oncology certified
nurses are particularly crucial in these communities. Their presence provides the care and expertise that patients need, even amidst
hospital and medical service cutbacks.
“Think about rural communities that barely have a doctor
around,” Tanner points out. “If someone with cancer comes
into your clinic, you don’t just want some random person who
doesn’t know how to care for oncology pa-
tients to treat him.”
A dozen more oncology certified nurses can
make a real dent in the prognosis and survival
of cancer patients predicted to be diagnosed
this year. Think of it like this, says Tanner: The
average registered nurse on an inpatient cancer
floor in her hospital sees about 10 patients a
week. If that same nurse works cancer patients
on an outpatient basis, too, she can work with
as many as 10 a day, up to 70 a week. Over
a year, if those nurses are oncology certified,
that’s thousands of patients a year who could
have a better prognosis because of their nurses’
understanding of the disease and its treatment.
