I'll be completely honest with you...

Specialties Pediatric

Published

LP1.jpg

Pediatric nursing had never crossed my mind. All of my life, I had liked kids, but never really wanted to work with them, mostly because of having to deal with their parents as well. As I entered my 3rd semester of nursing school (Pedi/OB), I came in with the mindset that-I just need to get through this so I can be that much closer to graduation. That very first day at the children's hospital changed my entire life.

I'm from Texas and I had the privilege to do clinicals at a major pediatric hospital in the state. I had been there before to visit my friends kiddos that have been in the hospital for various things, but I knew that being here for clinicals would be much different. I was assigned to a medical floor that sees mostly respiratory illness. We took a tour of the unit on our first day, and it was so different to see baby blankets and bottles in the supply room. This still hadn't sparked my interest, I was ready for the day to be over. Then, I saw my first patient.

My first pediatric patient was a little girl who was born with every disease and problem you could imagine. She was at the developmental age of an infant but had been on this earth for several more years than that. Seeing the way her mother and grandmother interact with her and how their whole lives revolve around taking this little one to the hospital and keeping up with her treatments finally made something spark inside of me. I don't have kids yet, so I couldn't even begin to imagine what they go through on a daily basis. I had never felt such an overwhelming feeling of wanting to help this little family with everything inside of me.

Oh, I hadn't even mentioned my nurse preceptor yet. This woman is the most incredible person I had ever met. Seeing the way she interacted with all of her patients (from 0 to 18 years of age) made me want to be exactly like her. She let me do everything, I even pulled a PICC line from an infant (what a rush!). She was there for observation and guidance, and that's exactly how she wanted it. She wanted me to learn and do all that I possibly could so that I could get a wonderful experience out of this. I will never be able to thank her enough for helping me decide my future path of life.

Now I sit here, writing you all an extremely long post (bless you all who have made it to this point), and I just keep praying for graduation day so I can hopefully go back to that same hospital. I want nothing more than to be a blessing to those patients and their families and to my future nurse co-workers who will hopefully someday realize how they have impacted my life in an extremely positive way. Thank you to all the pediatric nurses who bless the lives of infants-teenagers. It is not an easy task and it takes a very special person.

~Sarah Danielle

Photo credit: http://lakesidepediatric.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/LP1.jpg

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Specializes in Acute Care Pediatrics.

Your story sounds very much like mine. We had a split semester between OB and Peds, half of our class took OB first and half took Peds, and I signed up to do Peds first so I could "rip off the bandaid" and get it over with. I was dreading it, because who wants to work with sick kids all day? But the day I stepped foot on to the floor for my first clinical shift.... that was the day that I knew that this was where I wanted to be. It was the first time I felt like a nurse, and that this could be my job. When I had my senior preceptorship a year later, I was one of three students selected to precept at the hospital, a floor lower than the one I had done my clinical rotation on. Fast forward to a few months later, and I was hired back on that original floor..... :) Been there ever since. Love it.

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Your story sounds very much like mine. We had a split semester between OB and Peds, half of our class took OB first and half took Peds, and I signed up to do Peds first so I could "rip off the bandaid" and get it over with. I was dreading it, because who wants to work with sick kids all day? But the day I stepped foot on to the floor for my first clinical shift.... that was the day that I knew that this was where I wanted to be. It was the first time I felt like a nurse, and that this could be my job. When I had my senior preceptorship a year later, I was one of three students selected to precept at the hospital, a floor lower than the one I had done my clinical rotation on. Fast forward to a few months later, and I was hired back on that original floor..... :) Been there ever since. Love it.

I hope to have that same experience! Thank you for sharing :)

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Specializes in Pediatric Hem/Onc.

Peds is awesome. I've been in it for 4 years and I don't see myself ever leaving it. People don't understand how taking care of sick kids can fill you with such....joy. I always love reading about when it clicks for someone else :)

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My goal is to work in Peds. I am working on my BSN and hope that this will be my way in. I love reading

About your positive experience !

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Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

I also never really planned on going into peds, but took a job there as a nurse tech in my last year of nursing school just to try it out and ended up loving it. Peds is great cause you end up learning about all the life stages, from birth to adulthood.

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Anyone in peds cardiac? That is my ULTIMATE love! :)

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Specializes in NICU, PICU, PCVICU and peds oncology.

Eleven years of peds cardiac has me climbing the walls! I'm really hoping I can switch to peds medical-surgical ICU soon.

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Anyone in peds cardiac? That is my ULTIMATE love! :)

2 years of peds cardiac icu here and I LOVE it

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Peds cardiac ICU is my dream! I just hope I can actually find a position when I graduate..I know they are hard to come by. :nailbiting:

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Peds cardiac ICU is my dream! I just hope I can actually find a position when I graduate..I know they are hard to come by. :nailbiting:

VERY hard to come by as a new grad and very difficult. I worked as a new grad in the NICU first (a level 3c with surgery/ecmo) and that gave me a great foundation to stand on moving into CICU. Personally I have always felt that new grads can and do belong in ICU's (only if they have a fabulous training program) but having worked in all three peds ICU's I would venture to say cardiac might be one of the more difficult ones to learn with kiddos who always have one foot off the cliff. It takes a strong person to start there. Good luck!

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VERY hard to come by as a new grad and very difficult. I worked as a new grad in the NICU first (a level 3c with surgery/ecmo) and that gave me a great foundation to stand on moving into CICU. Personally I have always felt that new grads can and do belong in ICU's (only if they have a fabulous training program) but having worked in all three peds ICU's I would venture to say cardiac might be one of the more difficult ones to learn with kiddos who always have one foot off the cliff. It takes a strong person to start there. Good luck!

Thank you, umcRN! :)

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