PICU Nurses

HI
I live in McAllen Tx, (deep south texas) in the Rio Grande Valley there is only one PICU; thats where i work. It's a 12 bed place. Iwork 7p-7a and our staffing used to be very bad. there was a time when it was only 8 nurses to cover the night shift! we worked our butts off. Until know, they just hired some traveling nurses for a long-term overpaid contract.
We deal with 4 types of vents, oscilators, and nitrous oxide. I have learned so much and seen a lot of things. We deal with a lot of trauma, child abuse, medical and of chronic patients with multiple disease processes. From devastating accidents to plain murder. Overdoses of teenagers to 6 day old dying of sepsis. I enjoy where i work but i have seen so many children die that i think its beginning to hit me.
-danny-

Hi there fellow PICU nurses My names Mandy, and I work in PiCU at the Women's and Childrens hospital in Adelaide, South Australia. Its the only specialist PICU in the state and we also handle retrivals from the northern territory and country victoria and new south wales. I've only been working here for just over 2 months and am learning so much, though still feeling very lost at times. this is my first experience with paediatric nursing and I'm just amazed at how many things kids can have wrong with them. I guess all my friends/family with kids have just been plain lucky. We're pretty desperate for staff in our PICU at the moment, guess that's why they are hiring nurses like me with no paed experience. We're trialling the 12 hour shifts at the moment and I'm not liking that too much at all, looking forward to going back to the old 8 1/2 hour shifts - 12 hours can be a bit long if you've got a real sickie for that whole time. Looking forward to hearing from fellow PICU nurses.

Ohmygod,
Finally, someone in the South!!!! Just wanted to say hello. ;>P Hello! I don't feel so alone now...

K.

I am a PICU nurse at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (hollywood) we are a 20 bed unit level I trauma unit. The only Level one pediatric truama hospital in the state. We have extremely high acuity, high bed turn over and with all this have 2 other ICUs as well. (We have 20 bed PICU, 15 bed CT-ICU and 30 bed NICU) our ED is swamped with anything you can imagine. We have very little backstabbing between RNs and MDs. We work as a team and are willing to discuss a plan of action. This has been a long and hard road, but now we are a TEAM with the MDs. They do their job, we do our job and we respect and appreciate each others niche.
I am a Clinical Nurse III with a BSN and have been on this unit for 5 years. I love working with this team.

I have been a PEDS nurse for over 20 years and have just started working PICU in the last 8 months.
WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!!!!!!!
I love it.
We are a 10 bed unit in a trauma hospital in WV, so all the Peds trauma come to us.
We usually have 2-3 pts per shift, depending on their acuity.
We work 12 hour shifts, 36 hours a week.
Of course I have very few 36 hour weeks,lol.
We are associated with a med school so we have several Peds- speciality MDs.
I love this thread, I can see what I have to look forward too, ha ha.
Thanks all,
Lenda

I work at childrens hospital pittsburgh, I work 12 hour shifts 36 hours one week and then flex for 44 hours the next, We have a high patient census and the staffing is getting a lot better

Hello,

My name is jeff and I am a PICU nurse at Dartmouth -Hitchcock medical center, NH. I am relatively new to the unit in hope to gain critical care experience necessary for CRNA schooling. We have a ten bed unit with ample staffing and excellent nurses and doctors that love to teach. In fact Dr. Levin, one of the pediatric intensivists introduced the first PICU back in 1975 is the medical director. we are associated with Dartmouth medical school so the learning opportunities are plentiful. We work 3 twelve hour shifts per week on a 50/50 day night rotation for new employees. It is a great place to work.