Chemotherapy and Biotherapy Provincial Standardized Course (1.0 credits)

About: This course is completed over three days; Day 1 and Day 2 are delivered via video conference, and Day 3 is held in-person at a local care setting.

Weight: 1.0 Credits under Treatment and Delivery of Evidenced Based Care

Course Curriculum covers:

• Various treatment modalities used in cancer treatment, with emphasis on chemotherapy and biotherapy
• Factors affecting response to cancer therapy
• Commonly used agents, their mechanisms of actions, infusion-related issues, and side-effects
• Chemotherapy orders, calculations and nursing care required for protocols
• Safety precautions required when handling cytotoxic agents
• Clinical trials and the oncology RN's role
• Safety issues and principles
• Nursing procedures and interventions for administering cytotoxic and biologic agent by all routes
• Complications of common treatments and toxicity management
• Symptom management and specific teaching points for patients and families using a person-centred approach
• Internal and external resources to support patients and families
• Ethical considerations frequently encountered in practice and approaches to resolving ethical dilemmas
• Documentation consistent with CCO standards for practice

Weekly Commitment: The average time commitment for this course is 7.5 hours a week in-class time and 2-4 hours of course prep per week.

Tracking and Reporting of Results of the Chemotherapy and Biotherapy Course:

For future planning and maintaining course quality assurance, and providing support to nurses to maintain chemotherapy and biotherapy competency, de Souza is providing organizations with the names of nurses who successfully completed the de Souza's Provincial Standardized Chemotherapy and Biotherapy course.

The tracking stems from the preliminary results from the pilot and year one of implementation of the standardized program (July 2009 - January 2011). Please view the report for more information.

Organization leaders can now obtain a report of the following information:

·         A list of names of the nurses who have provided their consent to release their names from your organization

·         The number of participants who have successfully completed the course within your organization

If you are an organization leader wishing to obtain this report, please contact us at support@desouzanurse.ca