Professional development of oncology nurses: the University of Florence trial at the Careggi University Hospital Corporation (AOUC).

Abstract

Professional development in nursing appears to be an issue of particular relevance at the policy and strategic level because of changing health care contexts that require staff to reflect more on their professional skills. According to the latest European data, Italy still lags behind in terms of achieving minimum quality standards on oncology nursing education. Therefore, it becomes necessary to structure and implement new educational pathways for professional updating. The paper presents the experimentation carried out at the Careggi University Hospital (AOUC) in collaboration with the FORLILPSI Department of the University of Florence between September 2023 and March 2024. Through a bottom-up approach and the use of participatory methodologies, more than 80 nurses were able to increase their knowledge about professional competencies required at the European level, analyze best practices, and identify educational obstacles on which to develop new and coherent improvement strategies to be implemented in their department.