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Role Of Autonomy In Oncology Nursing

1469 Words6 Pages
Nurses Level of Leadership and Autonomy
United States Within the United States, the oncology nurses play a vital role in leadership being at the forefront of care, as well as having a wide range of autonomy. However, ultimately, the providers make the orders that the nurses have to follow. A 2013 article, Nursing Practice Environment and Outcomes for Oncology Nursing elaborate on autonomy within the oncology nursing field. A notable finding of the study was the more autonomy the nurses felt they had compared to their peers on medical surgical floors. Their research states that oncology patients normally have complex cases and require a lot of knowledge and time. Due to the complexity of their cases, nurses on oncology floors tend to have much lower patient to nurse ratios and provide special training programs. This led to enhanced nurse autonomy as well as improve other aspects of their leadership skills such as improving their collaboration with physicians and other health care providers (Shang, Friese, Wu, Aiken, 2013). Overall, the findings showed that oncology nurses were more happy in almost every aspect of nursing environment compared to those on medical surgical floors. The study goes to point the relevance of the findings to nursing practice to show that factors such as including nurses in committees, empowering nurses to contribute to institutional decisions, and enhancing their leadership will directly contribute to enhancing the nurses autonomy in oncology
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