[British Import]

Ouch. I feel for you.

We have to have BLS and PALS. I am taking a PICU course in the autumn, but this isn't required. I want to do it for my own self confidence and learning

[suzanne4]

NRP is the neonatal resuscitation program.

I keep up all three of them, never know when they will come in handy. Remember that you can get kids weighing 200 pounds in PICU, they are there because they are 16 years old, and are a football player. When bigger than the nurse that is caring for them, size does matter. And then the ACLS protocols would be used, or you would be using more than the one amp because of size.

The extra training does not hurt. And PICUs also get newborns many times for one reason or another. Especially if they needed heart surgery, but they can still be a 28 or 30 weeker.

[JustaPatient]

also, atleast at the childrens hospital I am a patient at there are patients like me. 19 years old or older (some are in there 30s 40s or 50s) because they have been a patient there their whole lives. and at my age ACLS would be more helpful then PALS.

[PICURN04]

In the two local children's hospitals in my area, both PALS and ACLS are required, but the hospital does not pay for them so you have to pay the fees up front.

[Semele]

In our PICU we are only required to have PALS and our manager is very good about scheduling time off for the course and we take it in house and get paid to do so. We are not required to have ACLS and so I have never had it...I think this is a grave mistake, as we get adult sized kids and young adults..and even the odd regular old adult who had no other bed so we had to take them.

Just this weekend we had one of our beloved patients who had grown up on the floor in our unit because we all work right thre together and the docs are comfy with us. She was 21 and end stage and it was an emotional time of not knowing whether the family would want the chemical code after all. We were getting prepared as the heart rate fell and even discussed drawing up the Epi. LOL! Thank goodness an adult icu nurse had floated down...she laughed at us and reminded us we can just use the whole vial. So there was no drawing up things ahead of time necessary.

We didn't end up doing any meds in that situation bu it was a real eye opener about the necessity of ACLS in our unit and I plan to bring it up with our educator.

[picucrn]

In my facility pals is required for all areas that care for kids. We also require APLS for all peds critical care (picu, ed) and encourage for all other pediatric areas.