Cancer Discussions - October 31st, 2009 - 2 Comments
Nurses who work with radiation cancer patients?
I have a question about a field I am interested in going into. I wanted to be a nurse practitioner, but I find myself interested in cancer patients and I would like to be a nurse that deals with assisting in radiation therapy. I have would just like to know the courses in High school (going into Junior year) I should look into taking (ex. sciences, maths) As well as in college, following by how many years I would require to earn this position. Thank you very much in advance.
I don’t work in radiation and never did, but I do know the courses needed to be a nurse which is the first step to radiology. In fact, they are two different things. I don’t know of any nurse that works in radiology. It is a field in itself. I could be wrong, but I do know, you need chemistry, biology, anatomy, as far as math, simple fractions is all we dealt with. Now, everything is pre-measured for the nurse, We used to have to count drips as they went into an IV. For instance. a DR would order an IV drip at 20 drops a minute. We used to have to set up the IV and literally count the drops while watching the minute hand on our watches. Now, no one has to do that because the machines do it for you. They didn’t teach Microbiology when I was in high school but you do learn it in Nursing school. Good luck. Choose well.
Do you want to give the radiation to the patients? If so, that’s not a nurse, it’s a radiation therapist.
•For names and addresses of accredited schools in radiography and radiation therapy, contact the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Suite 2850, Chicago, IL 60606-3182, or visit its Web site at http://www.jrcert.org/cert/Search.jsp .
•The Web site of the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists also includes a list of accredited programs in radiography, radiation therapy and nuclear medicine. Go to http://arrt.org/index.html?content=nd/listOfSchools.ndm/listSchools&iframe=yes .