Dealing With Child Abuse

[MeganDM]

I am currently finishing up my prereq's to apply to the nursing program this fall. I have spent a very long time thinking about possible things that could happen while I am a nurse and the only thing I think I will have a problem with is abuse. How do you deal with knowing that someone has abused a child, treat them without being judge mental (totally avoiding strangling someone). Do they train you for that? How do you deal with this when it comes through your department? What can I do to prepare myself if anything?

[travelnurse25]

Megan,

This is a hard one... the reality set in after 5 years of nursing when I faced this... I talked to other RN's had a mini "debriefing" and yes you want to strangle or beat the ***** out of the person who abused the most vulnerable populations, elders, children, domestic violence against women (in small cases men).

I have seen in my last 11 years of nursing 2 cases... dealing with it is another issue and you will manage.. trust me... hearing it now as a student seems un doable... but it comes with territory as you will feel @ ease that you took care of the situation. i:redbeathe:heartbeat

[mentalhealthRN]

Keep in mind too that you don't have to work with kids. There are so many areas of nursing to work in. For me when I was in school and in my peds rotation I found it hard. I held it together well on the floor but every day I would get in my car and cry all the way home. I had a baby --an 8 month old-- my first day of the rotation. She had been born to a woman with many other kids, of who she did not have custody and she was homeless. She left the baby in the hospital after she delivered. The baby had a lot of medical problems. Can't remember what exactly as they were childhood type dx mostly and I have not done peds since. But anyways this baby had been transferred from the next city over to us for cardiac surgery. She had no one. No visitors. The volunteers they had would go in now and then but were afraid to hold her with all the tubes and wires and such. The day I had her I did her care then asked the staff for a rocking chair and sat and cuddled her, rocked her and sang to her. It broke my heart that she was all alone, abandoned. I spent all my down time and breaks with that baby for my whole peds rotation. Then the couple of days I did in the PICU--seeing and hearing about the kids in there frim abuse and the kids who had various syndromes who had spent basically their whole lives in the hospital and would probably not make it past like 5 or 6 years old. That killed me. It was all so depressing. Like I said I cried every day of my peds rotation. I knew then that though I love kids I could never be a peds nurse. I have cared for kids in a psych ER setting but that is different. They are medically stable. So keep in mind, if you know that this is a tough thing for you.....doesn't mean you can't be a nurse. Just means you might want to find another niche. Thats what I did. Good luck to you.