Radiation/Oncology

Today is my second to last day at CMC. I have been covering an entire unit this week. Luckily it hasn't been super-busy! My unit is a general medical floor where most of the patients are geriatric. Many are hospice, comfort care or waiting to be placed in a nursing home. For the most part I am ordering supplements or just "following-up as needed" since many are NPO due to unresponsiveness.

Yesterday, I spent the morning with the Radiation/Oncology unit. I shadowed a few outpatients with cancer through the process. My first pt was a lady newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was first assessed for a process called 'gating' where they tape a small rectangular block onto the abdomen while she lays down on a CT scan table. The purpose of this block is to measure the wave of her breathing. Once they get a steady pattern of breathing measured, she was moved to another room with a similar set-up. This time they performed an actual CT scan. The gating process is used in patients where they think that the tumor experiences a lot of movement due to breathing. Gating allows the radiation to be applied in a more specific manner, targeting the tumor as it comes away from the body, to try and limit the amount of radiation that is applied close to the chest cavity. Once this was complete, the patient was free to go - but not before she was permanently tattooed with four black dots on her abdomen so that her radiation could be applied more precisely each time she comes in for treatment. I never realized how demanding a radiation regimen was. Pt's come in 5 days per week for about 2 months.