Any nurses that moved from Newborn Nursery to Peds?

[nursejessica16]

I am a new grad RN and I have been very fortunate to have landed my first full-time job in the Newborn Nursery :)

Although I'm very excited about starting out in the nursery, Peds has always been my dream nursing job (mainly general pedi) and I can only imagine how vastly different working in newborn/women's services will be from Peds based on my experiences from clinical.

Thinking about my long-term goals, I just wanted to ask if there are any nurses out there that has moved from nursery to Peds (or anything similar) that would like share their experiences? What was the transition like? Pros/Cons of both? Preferences?

Thanks so much!

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

I started my career in an intermediate care nursery. I graduated at a time when acute care jobs - well, actually ANY jobs - were very scarce, so this was my foot in the door. I stayed with it a little over 2 years and then moved to PICU. For me, the move wasn't much of a strain because my son is a medically-complex individual and I was very familiar with peds. It's easier to go from neonates to children than it is to go from adults to children. You'll already be used to weight-based dosing, interacting with parents and teaching. And many of the patients on a general peds floor are babies. It's definitely doable and definitely worthwhile.

[sergel02, BSN]

Can't say I'm at your point, but nurses have gone from nursery to peds. A good chunk of peds patients are babies after all. You'll get good, as one of my instructors pointed out, thinking everything is wrong with the baby until it's not. Lol, it's kind of a joke but not really. No one has seen those babies, and in peds, many of the kids of new diagnoses that aren't in their charts, and it's because of a nurse they get found sooner rather than later.

[pinkynbd99]

I've worked newborn nursery/transition for 6 years! I moved to Texas Children's Hospital about 3 years ago, wanted to go straight to ER but the recruiter informed me I had a better chance to get into TCH with what I already do, plus they were hiring! So I took it. I learned alot more stuff than before. In my other job we transitioned newborns in the nursery, at TCH we actually attend deliveries in L&D and that's a complete different experience! Talk about "I'm NRP certified" yeah, you don't know nothing about NRP until you've done catching newborns right at delivery! It's really expanded my experience with critical babies at birth, calling Neo response team and since it's TCH, I also get to see preemies and all other critical conditions when Neo response team needs to be there (I'm there as an observer and helper, since I know them already!) I think that's really helped me want to move on to ER peds and having had that experience I've had as transitional nurse in L&D has really helped me. So basically I'm moving to ER next month and I'm so nervous and excited all at the same time! I love babies but now I'll be in a Level 1 trauma, big medical center pediatric ER!! also other nurses from my unit have all transferred to other pediatric units within the TCH system, so I'd say look into something like that if you find it difficult to go straight to a peds position.