from ER to Peds

[kimber3ks, ASN, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Hello all,

It's been a little while since I've posted. I am what I consider to still be a "new" nurse. I graduated May 2007 and have been working in a local hospital in the ER for a little over a year. I have always wanted to be involved in mother/baby, but wound up in the Ed simply because the manager was more flexible with my schedule. So I've been in the ED, saw and learned a lot, both clinical hands-on skills, how to think fast, how you sometimes need to purposely slow down and see the obvious. It has been a wild ride. I can actually say I finally feel a wee bit comfortable, lol, and of course, I now have a chance to go to peds with the hopes of eventually cross-training on the mother-baby unit. Still not sure if I want to go mom or baby route, but that will come I'm sure.

I'm just wondering how in the world I will be able to use my crazy and sometimes chaotic ER skills and experiences on the peds unit. Our peds floor is small, I think 10 beds, as most of the really sick kids are flown out to local children's hospitals. So, I'm worried I won't get to see really good cases, not that I'm chasing, but you know, as for the experience and such.

Any tips on how to prepare much appreciated.

Thanks

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

Your ED experience will come in more than you realize, and you will probably be able to teach the staff a lot as well. While the smaller peds units don't always see the really sick kids, they usually see a variety of kids. I work at a stand-alone peds facility, so each floor has it's specialty. Usually, you only see a certain type of patient because that's what your floor specializes in. Whereas with the smaller one-unit ped floors, everything gets thrown onto that floor so you can see a good variety of things.