Cancer nursing education in the community hospital: principles and practice

Cancer nursing content is conspicuously absent from the curricula of basic nursing education programs. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of employing institutions to provide graduate nurses with a comprehensive nursing education that will ensure quality patient care; this may be accomplished through in-house or external continuing education programs. In 1987, the Educational Steering Committee for Cancer Care at The Washington Hospital was established to meet this need. Since its inception, the committee has developed, implemented, and evaluated four oncology core modules. Because patients with cancer are cared for throughout the institution, almost every nurse on the staff will, at some point in their career, care for a patient and family experiencing cancer. Therefore, nurses from many clinical settings are required to participate in the oncology core modules. At the time that this manuscript was published, 134 nurses had participated in at least one of the modules. Nurses who participate in the modules are awarded Pennsylvania Nurses Association contact hours.