Psych nurse to PICU

[QTNurseBSN]

Hello,

I am Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurse with both acute care inpatient hospital psych experience and outpatient clinical psychiatric experience. I have also worked as an orthopedic nurse in the hospital and dialysis nurse. I have been a nurse over 8 years and during that time I may have worked jobs that worked well with my family life or my kids schedules but may not have been the job that I truly wanted. I also wanted to work in critical care but because I never went that route right out of nursing school, it has been difficult to transfer or get a position in an ICU because of lack of experience. My desire to work in an ICU has not disappeared, but since working with children/adolescence with emotional disturbance, I have discovered how much I enjoy working with that age range. I have been strongly considering trying to seek employment in the PICU. It would still allow me to work with children, definitely in a different way, and it would allow me to work in an ICU. Am I even a good candidate for a position in the PICU? 4 years of working on orthopedic floor, where we cared for pediatric through geriatric patients and 1.5 years of pediatric psych should be enough experience..or maybe not. It's just funny how hospitals will hire a new grad in an ICU or specialized area, mainly because they can be molded and shaped to be the "perfect nurse" versus an experienced nurse who may just be lacking experience in that specialty.

Any advice or suggestions would be helpful that could help land me a position in a PICU? I would even consider acute PEDS to start, but currently there are not any positions available.