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Background: In order to improve the quality of care for cancer patients, The Norwegian Radium Hospital established in 1982 an advanced programme in cancer nursing. During the period 1982 - 2000, 366 cancer nurses were graduated. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate how the cancer nurses implement their competence into clinical practice after graduating from the programme. The Research questions answered were: 1) Do the cancer nurses utilise their competence in clinical practice, 2) Is there conformity between the cancer nurses own evaluation of their competence and the skills needed for managing their duties in clinical practice and 3) Did the advanced programme in cancer nursing become of importance for their skills development? Methods: This study is a part of a larger study with a survey design and the study sample consists of 188 cancer nurses out of 366 (response rate 53 %). Data was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire; this study is based on the quantitative data. A Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) was used to collect data from six areas of competence. Data analysis includes frequency- , correlation-, and cross table analysis. Chronbach’s alpha coefficient was used for measuring internal consistency. Results: The majority of the cancer nurses are working in bedside nursing, still 20 years after graduation. They evaluate their own competence as highly favourable regarding issues in care, medicine, education, collaboration, professional development and prevention. They considered the advanced programme as being very important for the development of their competence. The programme contributed to its main objective: to prepare cancer nurses for clinical practice. The advanced programme recruits nurses from the clinical practice and the cancer nurses go back to bed side nursing after completing the programme.

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