Need Advice about Pediatric Nursing

[Hozgur]

I am considering going into nursing and would love to go into pediatrics. I was hoping to get a general idea of what a typical day is for a pediatric nurse in the hospital and outpatient settings? I would really appreciate it if I could find out the specifics of a pediatric nurse's responsibilities are to the patient and to his or her parents. I would also like to know about the percent of time you spend caring for a patient, paperwork, and other duties like clean-up? I've been trying to find information online about their responsibilities and haven't had much luck. Thank you for your time!

[neonatal_nurse]

It depends on which area of peds you will be assigned. On a general peds ward, it's basically the same as the adults but on peds setting- so everything (meds, procedures etc.) is catered to kids- you need to adjust your measurements. It's a bit more tedious because you need to have that special "tlc" or charm or whatever you may call it to do some routine procedures like starting an IV for example-- you need to do this while the baby howls like there's no tomorrow, or you need to "convince" a 5-year old to take her medicine. A lot of sweet-talking I guess. This is aside from the paperwork, doctor's orders and all the stuff you have to do. Bottomline, just like any special area, it's not for everyone. It's for people who enjoy working with young ones, otherwise you wouldn't last a day.

[KidzNrz17]

The questions you asked are kind of hard to answer because every day is different. I've been a peds nurse for 19 years and the kids we have admitted now are so different than when I started. I also work sometimes in a peds oncology clinic. My focus is on oncology.

When you are in nursing school you will do clinical rotations in different areas. That is a time for you to see what "we" do. I knew from my peds clinicals that was what I wanted to do.

[llg, PhD, RN]

You might want to do some volunteer work in the types of work settings that interest you. That way, you would get to see nurses working with kids "up close" and begin to get a sense of what their jobs entail. You would also get the opportunity to meet a few peds nurses and be able to ask them a few questions.

As it stands now, your questions are so general and the answers vary so much that they are difficult to answer. It's kind'a like asking, "What's it like to be a person?" "What's it like to be a mom?" etc. Hard to answer.