neonatal career??

[tracyduong]

I want to be a neonatal nurse. But I am having second thoughts. I feel like they don't hire a lot of neonatal nurses out there because from what I heard, sometimes the NICU only have 2 or 3 babies to take care of. Then that means they dont hire much. Am I right or wrong. I really like to take care of babies. What do you dislike about being a neonatal nurse. Is it boring? I live in Washington, so how many years does it take to become a neonatal nurse if I want to get my Bachelors degree?

[llg, PhD, RN]

In many hospitals (including my own), the NICU is the largest unit in the hospital and "gobbles up resources." It all depends on the hospital.

If you really want NICU ... you won't find many opportunities in that field in small to mid-sized community hospitals. Such hospitals may keep a few of their babies who have mild problems, but they send their really sick ones (which they may not have very often) to large tertiary care centers. Those larger, centralized NICU's are located in large community hospitals, university hospitals, and children's hospitals. That's where you will find large numbers of sick and/or premature babies -- who need lots of neonatal nurses to take care of them.

So ... if you really want a NICU career, you'll have to go to where the babies are. That may mean moving to another community if you have none of those types of hospitals in your town.

[babyNP., APRN]

When you say Washington as in the state, not D.C., well, be prepared for a shock:

people in good ol' PNW do NOT have babies like the rest of the country! I always thought it was just a joke when the saying went that there were more cats and dogs in Seattle than children, but it's really true. I did a bit of searching and found out that WA state is way below the national percentile for births compared to the rest of the country.

I work at a large tertiary center on the east coast and my co-workers couldn't believe it when I told them that the Seattle Children's NICU was only like 15 beds, and serves WA, ID, MT, and AK as the regional referral center. The other units are a bit bigger (Tacoma General and Swedish come to mind), but nowhere near as big as the ones like they have here.

In Texas, there's even some 100 bed units!

Seriously...get out of the state and go seek your fortune elsewhere. I was lucky that I got my job when I did and had no idea that it was "normal" to have 40+ units all right next to each other. I feel like I would have been a little limited if I had stayed in the PNW.

edit: to answer your question about NICU nursing training, generally it's done in an extensive orientation after you graduate from nursing school and pass the NCLEX. Mine was 20 weeks.

[NicuGal, MSN, RN]

I agree with the others...you need to look for a large NICU, not a smaller one. Sometimes positions are hard to come by, NICU seems to have a low turn over compared to other areas.