[nurserox]

I work on a pediatric cardiac ICU. I started as a new grad and am only 8 months into it. I love the intensive care atmosphere and feel I am learning so much very quickly. However I am curious about trying NICU nursing after about a year. Any thoughts?
My reasoning is that I realized I love babies as a patient population and I have heard that NICU nursing, while still busy, the babies are still very sick, etc is not as tense of an atmosphere and that the relationship among other medical professionals is more team-oriented rather than hierarchical. I would love to hear opinions on the subject!

[SteveRN21]

I agree that NICUs can tend to be less hierarchical, and we do see a lot of very sick patients. It's not less busy, though, and I can say that having worked both PICU/PCICU and NICU.

Review some of the other threads on this forum, and you'll find a lot of great "day-in-the-life" threads.

[dawngloves]

I think you'll transition easily. The only difference is you'll see less cardiac issues and more GI and pulmonary.You'd be an assest to any unit when it comes to PDAs and the occasional missed cardiac kid.

[SteveRN21]

You can also find NICUs that keep their postop cardiac kids, so you can still get your open-heart fix. You won't see any Glenns or Fontans, but you'll see a lot of Norwood-Sanos, BT shunts and Arterial Switches.