“Is this job for me?” ODS-Cs: Who should absolutely consider this field… and who probably shouldn’t?
I see a lot of posts about whether or not they would like this job, and I’d love to hear from people who work in this field on what traits someone needs to enjoy working in a cancer registry.
Here are my two cents:
-An eye for detail. You have to QUICKLY scan multiple charts, pathology reports, imaging, etc., and find key terms to accurately find all of the information you need to fill out an abstract.
-Detective work. Do you like puzzles? Hidden picture books? Figuring things out? If so, you may love some of the more redundant tasks that require you to determine if a patient still has cancer, where they currently live, if they have a reportable cancer, and so on.
-Adapting to change and ALWAYS learning new things. If you like doing things one way and hate when things get switched up, you will hate this job. New manuals and guidelines are updated often, and there are times where you’ll realize you’ve been coding a section of an abstract wrong because a random rule changed that you didn’t know about.
-Focus, focus, focus. I have a wonderful job where my boss wants quality over quantity, but I’ve heard horror stories about people that work at places that require you to start a timer for each task and log how long it takes to complete. Time management is a big deal because there are deadlines for everything, and you have to balance your time between different aspects of the job. If you easily get distracted or like doing things at your own pace, you will not like this field.
-You will cry. Seriously. The second abstract I ever did was someone who had already died by the time I got to their chart. You have to read a patient’s whole story, which includes if they’re married, their family history, their personal history, and so on. When I got to the end of their abstract once they were on hospice and their death info, I knew so much about the patient that I had a big cry and thanked him for teaching me so much. And remember: Children get cancer too.
Side note: Contrary to popular belief, people don’t die from cancer as much as you think they do. If I do follow-up on 100 people, I would say maybe 3-5 people had passed away in the past year or so, and half die from something other than cancer.
Hopefully this helps someone who is switching careers and curious about working at a registry!