What skills and qualities are needed?

[CarolineRn]

I am a student working on a project for school.

What skills and qualities in particular would you consider most valuable for a Peds nurse? Pros and Cons of the area? Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Also, may I have your permission to use your responses and link to your threads?

Thanks in advance!

[vemiliob]

Peds is a big word which extension goes from premature-low-weight, or still worse, premature with malformations to adolescence-teenagers, including many developmental stages related to pros and cons from each one. Therefore will exist different fields of action, different scenarios and different skills will be required for all of them.

I would remark gross differences like pathologic and non-pathologic.

The second one related to reception of new born and prevention or health maintenance in all ages, including parenting teaching.

The first one will comprise a gamut of pathologies related to each developmental state, seasonal and geographic location, etc. To describe them would be better to go to a pediatric nursing text book.

Another gross differences would be related to the area or institution where one is employed.

Probably a giant hospital will handle a big pediatric population requiring nurses for each differentiated field whereas small institutions, home care and community health will require more a general pediatric nurse.

Sensitivity is the key-word for peds nursing, I don't think there could be a good pediatric nurse without it.

Therapeutic distance is another one.

Sooner or later one has to affront a child's dead. A patients dead it is always a crisis, specially when one is being treating him/her long enough to create a link. Nevertheless, there is no comparison.

Child abuse, child abandonment, or child victim of parent's negligence or parent's ignorance, are subjects sometimes difficult to keep on therapeutic distance.

To work with toddlers, specially neonates will require more technical and less psychological capabilities, whereas other developmental stages will require more behavioral and capacity for coping knowledge.

Not everybody can canalize a premature, not everybody can detect a cardiac pathology in few hours with simple behavioral observations, and not everybody has enough charisma to handle with adolescences.

I guess more or less these are universal keys in pediatric nursing.