Why pediatrics?

Specialties Pediatric

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Hello,

I am currently debating whether to specialize in pediatrics or adult care. For those who chose pediatrics, what made you choose it? Is there anything you dislike about it?

Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
Im about to graduate with my bsn in a couple of weeks and I've been thinking about what area to go in. Still unsure about peds, but if Disney movies are the downside then I think I would love it.

Im the youngest out of 4 sisters and never got to watch Disney as a kid, guessing my parents were sick of them by then. So only recently I have started to watch all the classics and I love them. Wish I got to watch them as a kid!

peds might be for me after all.

You might not think so after your kiddo watches it hour after hour after ...

Some parents want the TV on whenever their child is awake!

It takes a while, because I have to give them time to know me & trust me, but after a while, I can usually start to turn the TV off for short periods while I work with the child. (To him, it's play. To me, it's PT and OT.) When the parent sees the child is content, they usually agree to limit the TV somewhat.

It doesn't work so well when there are siblings who are addicted.

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.

I just ran through this thread. I was in my last semester of nursing school and thought that I had made the dumbest decision in my life to become a nurse. I hated it...hated it...and realized that if "this is it," I'm going back to being a pipefitter. Then Pediatrics happened as my last semester. Everything fell into it's purpose and I haven't left since.

The worst thing about pediatrics is the parents.

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Specializes in Pedi.

I am currently in the process of switching jobs. I have been a pediatric nurse for my full 10 1/2 year career. Currently I am working for an infusion pharmacy that has made many changes that make it clear to me that they care much more about profits than patients and I don't work that way so I am looking to get out. I wanted to see what kind of interest my resume would generate so I applied to a lot of different positions- including 2 at an adult hospital- 1 for an organ transplant coordinator and 1 for a nurse navigator in breast oncology because I thought "people who get organ transplants are usually on the younger side and maybe I could handle working with women." When I was offered interviews for both of these positions, I declined because I have 4 good pediatric prospects and I know there's no way I'd choose the adult jobs.

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Specializes in Pediatrics Retired.
I am currently in the process of switching jobs. I have been a pediatric nurse for my full 10 1/2 year career. Currently I am working for an infusion pharmacy that has made many changes that make it clear to me that they care much more about profits than patients and I don't work that way so I am looking to get out. I wanted to see what kind of interest my resume would generate so I applied to a lot of different positions- including 2 at an adult hospital- 1 for an organ transplant coordinator and 1 for a nurse navigator in breast oncology because I thought "people who get organ transplants are usually on the younger side and maybe I could handle working with women." When I was offered interviews for both of these positions, I declined because I have 4 good pediatric prospects and I know there's no way I'd choose the adult jobs.

Good luck!! I've posted this before but if adult nursing was my only option I'd quit and apply for one of those crab boat jobs like on deadliest catch or maybe a semen extractor on a turkey farm.

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Good luck!! I've posted this before but if adult nursing was my only option I'd quit and apply for one of those crab boat jobs like on deadliest catch or maybe a semen extractor on a turkey farm.

Ya know, Turkey seen extractor isn't something I ever though about but now I'll probably never forget it lol.

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So funny yall are saying this! I have worked with kids half my life(daycare/nanny) and when i developed an interest in nursing I immediately thought PEDIATRICS! Well I would tell various ppl this,incl nurses and they would make jokes or asides saying "well you havent worked with really sick kids" or "yah but you have to deal with the parents too!" which kind of turned me off from peds. So I am now in nursing school,just 2nd semester(medsurge/psych),next sem is peds and OB and before I kept trying to think of diff specialties other than peds(thinking I was just limiting my options too)-ER,ICU etc but keep coming back to peds! I know its too early to decide and should prob wait til next sem but reading all your responses got me hyped up again to try peds!lol. Yalls comments reminded me why I worked with kids in the 1st place-be a kid yourself,kids are real,socially awkward with adults,wont kill your back,rather clean a kids butt than an adult(really lol at that one!) etc and why Id want to stick with it! We shall see!

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

In nursing school, I was convinced I would be working with adults. Then we had a rotation at a daycare that specialized in medically fragile children and was hooked. After three years in pediatric home care, I tried to break into adult long-term acute care and it was just not the place for me. My own manager of the LTAC said that I had found my niche early. When I reached out to our local children's hospital for a place in their medical-surgical unit, they jumped on it. I look forward to getting back to "my" kids.

Many of the people here have expressed why I love pediatrics. Kids don't have time to be sick. Even the permanently medically fragile ones, which hold a special place in my heart. And quite frankly, most of my kids cope with having medical equipment better than a lot of adults. Adults, especially adult men, are accustomed to having tons of power and control. Take that away by them needing to be trached or ventilated or stuck in a hospital and they will become raging terrors and think the world owes them. Kids accept things so much more easily, even if they need to melt down every so often.

Plus, almost across the board my kids didn't cause their illnesses. I have cared for kids who literally couldn't be diagnosed the first 15 years of their life because their enzyme deficiency was so rare that only 5 cases existed in the world (that child was finally diagnosed by a specialist neurologist). Not his fault at all, or his parents'. Meanwhile, most of the adult patients I cared for were there for being addicts, pickling their livers with alcohol, or eating themselves into renal failure from uncontrolled hypertension. I just find it so much easier to empathize with my kids, and thank goodness there are nurses who can do the same thing with adults.

Probably the worst thing, like others have said, is the parents. Every parents thinks their child is the only sick one in the whole world, the most special, the most needy. Of course their child is the center of their universe, and that's as it should be. But their child, however much I adore them, cannot be the center of my world. Even worse was the parents I needed to report for abuse or neglect.

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Specializes in Pedi.

Probably the worst thing, like others have said, is the parents. Every parents thinks their child is the only sick one in the whole world, the most special, the most needy.

One of my favorite examples of this was the mother of a teenager admitted with a migraine. She asked her nurse when the doctors were going to start rounding and the nurse responded "they're rounding now." The mom was aghast and exclaimed "I thought they'd start with the sickest patient on the floor!" (They did, my patient with Marfan syndrome and a stroke on a heparin drip.)

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Specializes in Peds ED.
One of my favorite examples of this was the mother of a teenager admitted with a migraine. She asked her nurse when the doctors were going to start rounding and the nurse responded "they're rounding now." The mom was aghast and exclaimed "I thought they'd start with the sickest patient on the floor!" (They did, my patient with Marfan syndrome and a stroke on a heparin drip.)

Yeahhhhhh as a peds ED nurse I get a lot of parents assuming their kid is the sickest and them being angry it's taking so long to see them. Once I had a parent start yelling about how "someone" could be dying while we take forever to see them and I told them that we see the dying people right away which is why he is waiting.

But the parents and the Hot Dog Disney junior song are totally prices worth paying to work in pediatrics.

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