CLINICAL PRACTICE Creation of a journal club for oncology nurses: Fostering a transformation of practice

Abstract

In 2009, Cheung, Fishman and Verma (2009) showed oncology to be under-represented in training program curricula. According to their results, oncology constitutes less than 10% of the content of university health programs (in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy) in more than 70% of 84 schools surveyed throughout Canada. This perceived disparity between the oncology curriculum dispensed and actual needs was again described in a similar study published in 2014 that was conducted with 159 educators and 518 residents in Canadian medical schools (Tam, Berry, Hsu, North, Neville, Chan, & Verma, 2014). To our knowledge, it continues to be true of nursing training programs despite cancer having become the leading cause of death in Canada: one in four Canadians will die of cancer, while two in five Canadians will develop cancer (Canadian Cancer Society Advisory Board, 2015).