Clinical Internship at Novant Cancer Specialists

PAC Hallway

While completing this clinical internship at Novant Health Cancer Specialists in Matthews, NC, daily tasks consisted of, but were not limited to, assisting three oncologists (Dr. Nusrat Chaudhary, Dr. Adam Kuykendal, and Dr. Brownlee) in patient visits, adding RNs and chemo nurses in the exam rooms and the infusion center, and assisting the in-office lab with getting patient blood draws to them and then returning the results to the physician for the patient. Additional task completed included helping nurses set up online accounts for tumor testing agencies for patient’s tumor samples to be sent off to better plan their treatment, attending weekly breast oncology panels Friday mornings at the hospital, as well as observing and assisting in bone marrow biopsy’s. In all, 378 different patients were seen over the course of 432 total patient visits. 75% of these patients were cancer related while the remaining 25% were heme-related disorders. Of the 75% cancer related patients, 61% were starting or were receiving treatment for some variation of breast cancer. These breast cancer patients had diagnosis ranging from ductal carcinoma in situ to (DCIS or Stage 0) to Stage IV breast cancer. Out of this 61% of breast cancer patients, 75% were hormone receptor positive (identical to the national statistic). Additional cancer related diagnoses seen were chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL), colorectal, esophageal, brain, squamous cell lung cancer, non-squamous cell lung cancer, and ovarian. Lastly, additional heme-related diagnoses seen were sickle-cell anemia, iron deficiency anemia, thrombocytosis, thrombocytopenia, leukocytosis, and leukopenia.