Hi,

In Darwin, we started the two cancer care workshops.

One is a two days introductory course (run by the ward) which will give candidates and graduate nurses who works in our inpatient Oncology/Hematology ward an idea about the basic cares for cancer patients and central line cares. It is open to all the staff who works in the hospital.

The second one is a five day workshop(run by Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre, Outpatient setting) which is more intense and which is only for candidates who are interested in doing Chemotherapy administration. In this workshop, we cover all the treatment modalities and focus on chemotherapy. Three days of theory includes Medical Oncologists, Hematologists, Radiation Oncologists, Palliative care team, and surgical team talks about the treatment modalities. There is Allied Health team, Cancer Council and Leukemia Foundation talks about their role as well. Two days of Simlab sessions where staff get to practice on PICC's, PORT's, Spills and administering chemotherapy also familiarizing the lines. The maximum number of people is eight and minimum is six. After, the participants get three weeks of placement in AWCCC for Practical which is an agreement we have with the all the Managers. Attending two day workshop is one of the prerequisites for the five day workshop.

Hope this is helpful. Feel free to contact if needed.
Cheers
Dhanya.

Hello,

I am also interested in this topic. Until recently, I had been working in an inpt setting, where we would run a full day workshop for all the chemo trainees (usually 4-6 people) every 6 months. This gave nurses 6 months experience working in the specialty and then consolidating their practice, with an intensive day of theory. This worked quite well.
I have now moved to an outpt setting (with no inpt setting attached) I currently have 1 nurse we are trying to make chemo competent. I am working with her in the mornings, and then in the afternoons we do some theory, ie only one workshop a day. I don't want to do a full day workshop as it is just the two of us, so I feel will be extremely draining/hard to retain all the information. Open to any suggestions!!
Thank you!

I also work in the outpatient oncology setting. What I have found is that running the ADAC day "equivalent", i.e. the four identified sessions has worked really well. I tend to schedule as three sessions- one/two per week for around two hours, Reviewing protocols and prescriptions (1), Education and Patient Assessment (2), IV administration (3). From feedback received, the staff have found that the break between sessions has been valuable to reflect and observe other clinicians executing the process. With the next session we revisit the previous session , discuss their observations and clarify and queries they may have had. Although staff enjoy the ADAC day (and depending on the workplace requirements it may be the only option)- feedback has consistently been that they are a little overwhelmed by the amount of content covered in one day.

Hi,
We run the clinical skills workshop as a single day, but have in the past also split the 4 sessions into 3 consecutive weekly 2 hour sessions.
I have use ADAC NCS for HITH nurses with a tailored workshop (4hrs). Competency assessments were undertaken within the day unit. More recently we have supported registered nurses in our rural facilities to train with ADAC, clinical skills workshop and supervised clinical placement to provide chemotherapy service with telehealth supervision. assessments were undertaken via video conference for safe handling and oral administration. IV assessment in day unit during supervised clinical placement.