T internAtionAl PersPectiVe S UE

FEATURES/Rubriques
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
by Savitri Singh-Carlson
T
he Oncology Nurses Association of
India (ONAI), formed in November
of 1994, is situated in the Nursing
Department at Tata Memorial Hospital in
Mumbai, India (https://tmc.gov.in/medical/departments/nursing.htm#).
The
ONAI organization promotes Professional
Nursing through membership of National
Nurses Association (American Nurses
Association,
http://nursingworld.org/)
and the National Oncology Nursing
Association (Oncology Nursing Society
[ONS], https://www.ons.org/). It has an
affiliation with International Society of
Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC, http://
www.isncc.org/) and Australian Cancer
Nursing Association (Cancer Nurses
Society of Australia [CNSA], https://www.
cnsa.org.au/).
With five chapters within India, it
has more than 400 active ONAI members. The ONAI set the criteria for
starting a chapter as having a minimum of 30 members according to
Sulochana Retnamony, Deputy Nursing
Superintendent of Tata Memorial
Nursing and ONAI President. The
vision of ONAI is: Excellence in Service,
Research and Education. Its aims and
objectives include:
a. To render quality patient care;
b. To update the current advances
related to practice and skills;
c. To develop and disseminate evidence-based treatment, and;
d. To provide a link within India and
outside India.
Its activities include yearly or biennial
conferences for oncology nurses in India,
with awards for conference presentations,
and a quarterly newsletter “Oncology
Nursing Newsletter”. ONAI continually
strives to provide timely educational seminars on cancer awareness for upcoming
oncology nurses. This national organization’s entrepreneurship in raising
Professional Consciousness of Indian oncology nurses is applauded for its innovativeness and for providing a forum for
integrity and advocacy of oncology nursing in India.
As reported in an earlier article, “curricula taught in nursing schools for education of the general nurse, as well as
the standards of practice and guidelines
under which each country prepares
nurses for practice, differ from country to country” (Singh-Carlson, 2014, p.
109). While this is true for general nursing education standardized curricula in
most countries, including the Indian
Nursing Council, there is a challenge
when developing practice standards and
competencies for specialized oncology
nurses. This is because a national foundation for professional oncology nursing standards of care, and a definition
of the roles and the necessary competencies has not been put in place yet in
India. Without a national foundational
document that outlines guidelines for
practice standards and competencies
for specialized oncology nurses, each
cancer setting (program or centre) has
the task of preparing its own documents and educational content when
educating their staff nurses to be competent in preparing and delivering chemotherapy, radiation, and other related
skills for providing quality cancer care.
In
January
2015,
Akanksha
Dicholkar, Chief Nursing Officer, Dr.
Vivek Radhakrishnan, Chief Medical
Oncologist of Aster MedCity Oncology
Care in Cochin, Kerala, and I successfully conducted a workshop in Oncology
Nursing in India. An interdisciplinary
team presented topics that were relevant
to oncology care with invitations sent to
nurses in neighbouring cancer settings.
Following this successful workshop
and assessment of the nurses’ educational needs, our next task was to prepare practice standards, competencies
and guidelines for oncology specialized
nurses in preparation for the opening of
the new oncology unit at Aster MedCity.
After reviewing the Canadian Association
of Nursing Oncology (CANO) and ONS
published standards of practice and
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Savitri Singh-Carlson, Associate Professor, California State University, Long Beach, California.
Email: [email protected]
210
competencies, the team created a document that ensured appropriate fields of
education for the specialized oncology
nurse and created skills mastery levels to
be utilized as part of the curricula.
In order to ensure this document
covered depth and specificity for quality patient oncology care and safety standards for nurses, the team approached
the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) in
Trivandrum to examine their existing practice standards, competencies
and curricula. This Kerala state-funded
cancer centre has been in existence for
more than 10 years. I was invited as
a guest lecturer to the RCC and conducted a verbal assessment of the current educational level of specialized
oncology nurses. This assessment
revealed a depth of clinical and leadership expertise, which I recognized as a
combination of academic and experiential knowledge comparable to that of
cancer care nurses in most settings.
Most of the oncology nurses at RCC
in Trivandrum had autonomy to make
clinical decisions within their scope
of practice. However, they also desired
Professionalism, Advocacy, and the ability to collaborate and share evidence from
their practice that would allow change.
And they faced the continuing challenge that oncology nurse leaders and
educators at each cancer setting prepare
their own documents for practice standards, competencies and protocols to
train nurses for moving from general
to specialized oncology nurses. Content
for developing these documents was
derived from CANO and ONS, but
mostly from the latter, as the RCC nurse
educator was an ONS member. Credit
was given to both these international
organizations in their curricula.
Nurse leaders at RCC and Aster
MedCity were able to share their knowledge and help to strengthen the development of practice standards and
competencies to guide the specialized oncology nursing training at Aster
MedCity. Consequently, following the
meeting of oncology nurse leaders
from various centres, the next steps
will be to unite Kerala oncology nurse
leaders from various regional state
and private cancer centres to collaborate on the development of a document
Volume 25, Issue 2, spring 2015 • Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal
Revue canadienne de soins infirmiers en oncologie
REFERENCES
International Society of Nurses in Cancer
Care (ISNCC). World Cancer Day
2015. Retreived from http://www.isncc.
org/?page=WCD2015
evidence that will inform policy changes
at the national ONAI level for the standardization of curricula and to develop
an advanced practice nurse role as an
oncology clinical nurse specialist.
Is this a lofty goal? We don’t think
so. This goal is in sync with the ISNCC
World Cancer Day 2015 statement
on The Role of Cancer Nurses in the
World: “Internationally, the contribution of cancer nurses must be valued
at all levels of the health care and political system; failure to do so will have a
detrimental impact globally” (ISNCC).
Singh-Carlson, S. (2014). Cancer nursing in
low-middle income countries. Canadian
Association of Nursing Oncology, 4(2),
109–112.
PERSPECTIVE INTERNATIONALE
par Savitri Singh-Carlson
F
ondée en novembre 1994, l’Oncology
Nurses Association of India (ONAI)
est située dans le Service de Soins infirmiers du Tata Memorial Hospital à
Mumbai en Inde (https://tmc.gov.in/
medical/departments/nursing.htm#).
L’ONAI préconise des soins infirmiers professionnels à travers son appartenance à la
National Nurses Association (American
Nurses Association, http://nursingworld.
org/) et à la National Oncology Nursing
Association (Oncology Nursing Society
[ONS],
https://www.ons.org/).
Elle
est affiliée à l’International Society of
Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC, http://
www.isncc.org/) et à l’Australian Cancer
Nursing Association (Cancer Nurses
Society of Australia [CNSA], https://www.
cnsa.org.au/).
Avec cinq sections régionales en Inde,
l’ONAI compte plus de 400 membres
actifs. Selon Mme Sulochana Retnamony,
surintendante adjointe des soins infirmiers de Tata Memorial Nursing et présidente de l’ONAI, l’organisme a fixé comme
In order to deliver quality cancer care,
oncology nurses require proper education if they are to gain knowledge, be
skilful, and master competencies that
are unique to cancer care. ISNCC further states that cancer nursing education must be: “based on standardized,
evidence-based curricula, adapted to
meet each country’s needs and based on
lifelong learning” (ISNCC, n.d.) http://
www.isncc.org/?page=WCD2015. We
will report on the ongoing success of
this goal in future reports.
critère un minimum de 30 membres pour
établir une section régionale. La vision de
l’ONAI est la suivante : l’excellence dans
les services, dans la recherche et dans l’enseignement. Elle a les objectifs suivants :
a. Offrir aux patients des soins de
qualité;
b. Adopter les progrès actuels en matière
de pratique et de compétences;
c. Développer et diffuser des traitements fondés sur des preuves;
d. Établir un lien au sein et à l’extérieur
de l’Inde.
Parmi ses activés, l’ONAI organise
des conférences annuelles ou biennales pour les infirmières en oncologie de l’Inde, au cours desquelles elle
remet des prix pour les présentations, et
publie un bulletin trimestriel, Oncology
Nursing Newsletter. Elle s’efforce continuellement d’offrir des séminaires
éducatifs de sensibilisation au cancer
pour les infirmières et infirmiers en
oncologie débutants. L’initiative de cet
organisme national cherchant à développer la conscience professionnelle des
AU SUJET DE L’AUTEURE
Savitri Singh-Carlson, Professeure agrégée, California State University, Long Beach, Californie.
Email: [email protected]
Canadian Oncology Nursing Journal • Volume 25, Issue 2, spring 2015
Revue canadienne de soins infirmiers en oncologie
infirmières et infirmiers en oncologie
indiens a été applaudie pour son innovation et pour avoir établi un forum de
discussion sur l’intégrité et la promotion des soins infirmiers en oncologie
en Inde.
Comme signalé dans un article précédent, « Les programmes d’études
enseignés dans les écoles de sciences
infirmières pour la formation des infirmières généralistes, ainsi que les lignes
directrices et les normes de pratique en
vertu desquelles chaque pays assure la
formation de ses infirmières, diffèrent
d’un pays à l’autre. » (Singh-Carlson,
2014, p. 113). C’est sans doute vrai en ce
qui concerne les programmes éducatifs
normalisés en soins infirmiers généraux, y compris ceux de l’India Nursing
Council. Cependant, c’est un défi que
d’élaborer les normes de pratique et les
compétences pour les infirmières et
infirmiers spécialisés en oncologie. Cela
est dû au fait que des normes professionnelles de soins infirmiers en oncologie, ainsi qu’une définition des rôles et
des compétences nécessaires, n’ont pas
encore été établies en Inde. En l’absence
d’un document de base national décrivant les lignes directrices des normes
de pratique et des compétences nécessaires aux infirmières et infirmiers spécialisés en oncologie, chaque milieu de
211
FEATURES/Rubriques
that describes practice standards and
competencies and will guide specialized oncology nursing practice at the
state level. There will be several procedural steps to undertake and organizations with whom to engage. However,
their mission is to promote Excellence
in Oncology Nursing that enhances the
quality of cancer care for patients and
their families. Their aim is to develop
a strategic plan that will promote professionalism, innovation, autonomy, advocacy,
collaboration, research, and continued education. The ultimate goal is to gather