What is the difference between these two types of nursing?

[llaura]

]I know this is a dumb question, but i am kind of confused about this. Is general pediatrics the same as med/surgical pediatrics? What is the difference? And also, in the PICU part of the hospital, are the children normally not able to talk during their time their? I thought allnurses was the best place to ask since their are so many intelligent people here.

[annabeap, MSN, APRN, NP]

So, general pediatrics is all peds... whether that be med/surg peds, ortho peds, neuro peds, heme/onc peds, etc... it's the floor that gets all peds pts. Now, you could work on a dedicated peds floor at, say, a Children's Hospital.

PICU gets the kids that are more unstable... septic shock, severe respiratory distress, post-op neurosurgery, etc. It's up to the docs' assessment of our pts whether or not they need a PICU admission or Inpatient Pediatric admission. It's the docs decision if they think the child needs the attention the PICU provides.

Depending on their LOC, unstable kids can talk just like the stable ones. I'm not sure what you meant by can PICU kids talk- like, if they were vented? Or trached? But sometimes, our ill children aren't as talkative.

I work general peds, and we get trached kids as much as the PICU does. And even some of those kids can talk too!

Hope that helps! :)

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

Many, perhaps even most, children in PICU are intubated, meaning they have a fairly large tube that passes from their nose or mouth into their trachea through their vocal cords. This tube is necessary to provide mechanical ventilation and a protected airway. They are unable to talk aloud because their vocal cords don't rub together or have air passing over them while the tube is in place. They are typically sedated to inprove tube tolerance and facilitate ventilation.