The Ambulatory Care/Office Nurse You may not always receive your cancer treatment in a hospital. The preferred place of treatment in many places recently has shifted away from hospitals. You might, therefore, find yourself in a comprehensive cancer center, an out-patient clinic, an ambulatory care center or a private office.
One major reason for this shift is the tremendous costs of health care today. There is a great push to shorten hospital stays because out-patient care is more cost-effective for patients, insurance companies and health care plans. But more important, you benefit by going to an office or clinic, getting your treatment and then going home to recover in your own home and sleep in your own bed.
Antinausea treatments have become so sophisticated that many of the negative side effects that used to mean a long stay in the hospital for treatment have been eliminated. Of course, specialized or research cancer treatments still usually have to be given in the hospital so your condition can be closely supervised and monitored. But even then, you can spend more time outside the hospital than used to be the case.
Out-patient nursing includes giving all types of chemotherapy treatments ranging from a rapid injection to a five- to seven-hour infusion . Out-patient nurses learn the latest treatment protocols and investigational studies and can give you and your family important information about your disease, treatment, possible side effects and how to manage your medications. These nurses are experts at starting IVs or any of the surgically implanted catheters such as the Hickman, the Port-a-Cath and the Infusaid pump, to name a few. Their job may include mixing and preparing the chemotherapy drugs, syringes, IV bags or bottles.
