Journal of cancer education : the official journal of the American Association for Cancer Education
-
Assessment of smoking status and identification of those most likely to continue smoking are important in the management of patients who have bladder cancer, because continued smoking following diagnosis and treatment increases the likelihood of treatment-related complications, recurrence, second primary malignancies, and morbidity and mortality. ⋯ The findings underscore the need to assess smoking status and provide smoking-cessation advice and counseling within routine comprehensive care of bladder cancer patients.
-
R25 grant support from the NIH/NCI enabled the University of Arizona to assess nutrition education, develop and evaluate specific course content, and move toward comprehensive prevention-based nutrition education in 1991-1997. Hours of nutrition education increased to 115% over baseline, and students indicated greater satisfaction with the amount of nutrition instruction they received. ⋯ After the grant support ended, nutrition began to be crowded out of the curriculum by other, more traditional, topics, but a 57% gain over baseline was sustained. External support for nutrition education is urgently needed.
-
A multiprofessional approach to the treatment of cancer patients already exists. However, in the educational process the principle of training students to work in cancer care teams is not yet common. Since 1998, undergraduate students in university schools of nursing in Ukraine have been studying oncology as a separate subject. Because nursing students are trained in oncology departments of medical universities, it is possible to teach a team approach to medical and nursing students simultaneously. Thus, a unified training program in oncology was initiated. ⋯ This teaching method should foster a professional relationship between the doctor and the nurse and contribute to their mastering cancer knowledge, which in practice will enable them to work as a team. Teaching students to function as cancer care teams should be considered for primary clinical training in oncology for future physicians and nurses.