Adult ICU to PICU

[NurseLeah]

When I first graduated from nursing school 2 years ago I was hired onto a Neuro ICU on a large unit that enjoys extremely high acuity pts. This made my first year pretty stressful (an understatement) however I feel I've done fairly well and am now helping others through their first year. I will be relocating soon however and feel I might like to broaden my knowledge by trying other aspects of ICU. PICU has always been an interest, but I do not have any experience in peds and wonder if I would essentially need to start over (I'm not sure I'm ready for that again). Is there anyone out there who has moved from adult ICU to PICU who could give some insight?

[ERRN1028]

When I first graduated from nursing school 2 years ago I was hired onto a Neuro ICU on a large unit that enjoys extremely high acuity pts. This made my first year pretty stressful (an understatement) however I feel I've done fairly well and am now helping others through their first year. I will be relocating soon however and feel I might like to broaden my knowledge by trying other aspects of ICU. PICU has always been an interest, but I do not have any experience in peds and wonder if I would essentially need to start over (I'm not sure I'm ready for that again). Is there anyone out there who has moved from adult ICU to PICU who could give some insight?

I went from 3 years of Adult Emergency Room to PICU, the ICU setting will probably be somewhat the same atmosphere for you,(vents, ICP monitors, mixing drips, lots of Invasive lines)... but I can tell you that from experience, children are a very different world than the adult world. I'm not the best person to get the advice from but i was in the same shoes you are when I switched.

Hard to explain but kids are really different to adjust to, everything is Kg based, they have o2 sat issues( RSV kids drop to 70's and bounce back fast) just freaky and hard to get used to when an SPO2 of 70 in an adult is bad.

Anyways..hope it helped ..but I love the PICU and don't plan to go back to adults any time soon

[misschelei]

I do Agency so I switch back and forth between ICU and PICU. It's all critical care but the similarities end there. It will be a lot to take in but things will click if its right for you. When adults go bad its usually some type of acute arrythmia. Kids usually go into respiratory arrest. This does not usually happen acutley and can often be avoided which is why it is imperitive for PICU nurses to have excellent assessment skills.