Oncology nursing essentials: then and now.

Forty years ago, in 1975, if you were a practicing clinical oncology nurse, you may have been working in an inpatient setting, acting as a primary care nurse during your 8- to 10-hour shift, and caring for patients with lymphoma or leukemia who were receiving multiple-day infusion treatment. These patients, most of whom were receiving a variation of standard chemotherapy regimens, were treated as inpatients because they were or would be very sick, based on their reaction to chemotherapy and their need for urgent symptom management. 
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