My goal is to eventually be an RN in a NICU or PICU somewhere, so it's important to me to do well and learn a lot in this peds rotation. I'm a 40 year old male with 2 beautiful grand daughters. I spent about 15 years working as a correctional officer and correctional supervisor on death row and in administrative segregation and gang prevention with the state prison system.
So, your job: convince me that a big old burly dude who spent most of his adult life in a prison environment can be good and safe in a pediatric facility. Hurry, there's not much time!
God...Imagine all the things that can go wrong!
(My grandkids love me and babies smile at me in public, so I'm hoping that's a sign.)
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
well, finished my first week of lecture, and my first two days of clinical. everyone's still alive and in pretty much the same condition as i found them. :)
my clinical experience ran the gamut from 2 hours spent restraining an adolescent who bit his nurse, ripped out his iv and proceeded to tear crap up on the peds floor (he was a transfer from the behavioral health hospital) while their security officers stood around playing pocket pool, to getting to spend 2-3 hours taking care of a beautiful little 4 month old boy with a spiral fracture to his femur (supposedly happened at day care, and got me (inside) quite riled for a few seconds). the hours spent with that wonderful baby completely wiped away any negative feelings i'd developed from anything else i experienced.
overall, a very fulfilling week!
see, this is why i couldn't work in a surgical unit of a city hospital. i have difficulty dealing with cases where there has been a question of neglect or one person doing deliberate harm on another (shootings, stabbings and beatings). when i was a supervisor we had a shaken baby who was in a coma and to make it worse the media was all over it. the parent who was suspect had not been arrested yet and was allowed to visit. made me physically sick to my stomach just being in the unit around this poor child or that parent.
i have no idea how you will deal with these things as a pediatric nurse, but then again, i'm sure many people have difficulty understanding how i was able to deal with all the nasty wounds and what was draining out of them that i saw in the medical stepdown unit.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
When my son was in PICU back in 1989 after a liver transplant, the first nurse I came in contact with there was a man. Doug was very compassionate and more than willing to explain things and let me help. The following night the nurse was also a man, and when I think of Bortaz, the mental image I get is that of Matt, this nurse from Night 2. Matt looked like a linebacker; he was well over six foot, maybe 230, with shoulders out to there and red hair and a beard. The gentleness I saw in that man when he bathed my son, tenderly washing his hair and scrubbing off the thermodiltuion stains... well, I've never forgotten it. (I became a nurse in 1994 because of people like these.) Doug and Matt cared for my son frequently while he was in PICU, and were always available for superior upper body strength when it was needed. Now I work with several men that I am honoured to be around. You go, Burly Guy!
So, we're quite a few weeks in, and I'm loving it. When I was moved from the PICU to the OR for an "Observation session" one clinical day, I missed the kids and the peds floor badly. At lunch, I asked my CI if I could return to the floor.
I have read many times, here and other places, about patients getting in your heart, and I know now what they've meant.
My patient for 2 days this week was a little 2 year old boy with a lacerated duodenum. He's all decked out with NGT, Central line, PIV, foley cath, on a continuous fentanyl drip and TPN/fat emulsions.
For the first few hours of caring for this baby, I spoke often with his mother and her boyfriend, got their story as to how he managed to lacerate his viscus. Felt really sorry for them, and especially for the baby. Mom cried when talking about the baby. I comforted her.
Around 10 am, the surgeon comes into the room, with a CPS investigator and a Sheriff's Deputy. They ask me to remain in the room to keep the baby occupied while they interviewed the parent(s).
Turns out, the surgeon doesn't believe it is physically possible for the injury to happen the way the mother described it (she claimed he'd been jumping on a bed, and fell with his abdomen across the railing of his crib). Indeed, he said that the only 2 causes he'd ever seen for this injury was 1. auto accident w/seatbelt (didn't apply in this case) and 2. an adult hitting the child with a balled fist.
I can't explain my feelings here, and stay within the TOS of this site. I was angry, though, and for several reasons. First, I was angry that the child was likely PURPOSELY injured. Second, the family had bald-faced lied to me ALL DAY, crying and sobbing, while I was trying to help heal their child.
It was a trial for me, and according to my instructor and the surgeon, I handled it professionally. Now, though, days later, I still have little DG on my mind, and have gone into the PICU to check up on him several times.
I try to remain polite to the family, and haven't asked any questions about the investigation. I try not to convict them in my mind until something is proven one way or the other. I hope they aren't lying, and I simply tell them that I was concerned with his recovery, and had been thinking of him since I left, and wanted to check in on how he was doing. He's doing OK.
Two things made this whole thing worthwhile. I'd been trying to get him to talk the entire time I've known him. The first time I succeeded was the 3rd day, when I was just visiting. I walked up to his bed, and his face lights up in a bright, beautiful smile and he says "WIM!" very loudly, and very clearly.
No, my name isn't Wim, but it is Tim, and I can tell you for a fact, that made my year.
Thanks for reading this long story, and thanks again for all your support.
Your story just breaks my heart. I admire your desire to continue in peds after your clinicals experience. I love children and babies so very much that I just don't think I would be functional in that situation. (Not that you or anyone else in peds loves kids less than me...but I have not been able to figure out how to stay sane in the face of such horrible situations) Unfortunately, as much as I would hope the parents did not do what they swear they didn't, statistics show otherwise. I truly hope it was an accident.
Regarding being a guy in peds... I used to work in corrections, and your background should really come in handy IMO as far as being able to stay calm and take care of things (or atleast maintain the pretense of calmness), when it gets stressful. Some of the people I work with are easily stressed, and kids feel that (and oft times respond to it) a hundred times more than adults, in my experience. But thats just my "mom" experience. :)
Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.
Tim, I can totally relate. When I was doing my orientation in PICU many years ago now, we had a 9 month old girl whose injuries were similar. She went to the OR for an exploratory laparotomy and I asked if I could help readmit her. The nurse assigned her care was happy to have me help. (I can see the entire event in my mind's eye even after all this time.) She came back on an epinephrine infusion because she had gone shocky in the OR. I was doing the tasks of admission: establishing bedside monitoring, untangling lines, baseline vitals, and so on. When I went to put in a rectal probe for temp monitoring, I was absolutely sickened by what I saw. No one else had noticed that her rectum was torn even though she had a foley in place. To make a long story short, the surgeon said exactly what your surgeon said about the mechanism of injury; the child had multiple caregivers so no one individual could be singled out as perpetrator; the baby died that night and so did any chance for justice. One of the difficult things in peds is that children are small and powerless against those who seek to hurt them. It's not our role to judge, only to provide care. Document what you observe in the child, in the parents' behaviour, in the interactions between child and family. Be objective. Someday your observations might be important.
Thanks for your astute observations. I truly believe the kids need someone who cares about them, so I more and more desire to eventually end up working in PICU or NICU permanently when I graduate.
I think it'll be the most fulfilling job I could have, after being around so much grief and chaos for so many years.
Well, tomorrow is the last day of peds, and while I despised the theory instructor's "read from the powerpoint" teaching style, I am surely going to miss the clinical days working with the kids.
I've begun to develop professional relationships with the managers and nurses at the hospital, in the hopes of doing my preceptorship there just before graduation in May.
Again, thanks for all the support you provided in this thread. I believe I've found my calling in nursing, and look forward to many years of working with the kiddos.
Now, on to OB...which I am NOT looking forward to. Maybe they'll let me work in the nursery every day...:bby:
angelc
22 Posts
Just think...everybody loves Hagrid in the HP movies
Big and Burley can seem protective and huggable instead of intimidating given the right tone of voice and facial expressions.