Evaluation of the novice registered nurse in developing capability in the clinical setting of oncology

The oncology nurse role is wide-ranging. It involves complex patient assessment, caring for the neutropaenic septic patient, community cancer prevention and detection strategies, patient education, supportive care, and symptom management. Within this specialised field, and as part of continuing professional development (CPD), the registered nurse (RN) is required to undertake practical assessments, or clinical competencies, to demonstrate competence in practice. The senior oncology nurse is required to allocate staff and workload. Anecdotally, it is difficult to determine which nurse is capable of caring for which patient(s) based on clinical competencies alone. To help understand the decision-making process, this qualitative interpretive description study sought to explore how mentors of novice RNs evaluated capability in the oncology clinical practice through semi-structured interviews. Findings were framed and evolved, resulting in five categories of: evaluation; characteristics of capability; competency versus capability; postgraduate studies and their impact; and barriers to evaluation and capability building.