Can experienced Med/surg RN move into peds?

PedRN86 · Dec 30, 2012

Sounds like it might be just the career move you need! I would consider appplying, you seem compassionate, you're skilled, you enjoy children and families. I think you can get a good feel of the ward from the interview process and ensure they'll be supportive and smooth your transition into pediatrics. Let us know how things go... good luck!

artistnurse · Dec 30, 2012

I recently left the med surg floor to work in the well baby nursery. I LOVE it. No more ungrateful, rude, confused, combative, MRSA, VRE carrying, "you-owe-me", "I-own-you" adults....(No offense) :roflmao: It is busy, but I should have moved to this age group along time ago, and I've only been working with adults for about 2 years.

LadyFree28, BSN, LPN, RN · Dec 30, 2012

I worked in Sub Acute for 18 months while working per diem in Peds...fast forward 7 years, The bulk of my experience is Peds...no worries, go for it...BTW, you will see some adults in Peds, especially if they have chronic and chromosomal disorders...they usually feed the occasional "pangs" for adult patients! :0D

Genista, BSN, RN · Dec 30, 2012

I appreciate the responses. I told myself I hate acute care (after over 10 years in adult nursing). I didn't always hate it, though. The only areas left that interest me in the hospital are mother/baby and recently I was thinking about peds. But I am afraid I will feel the same.I am not sure if I should stay away from the hospital altogether. What burned me out on acute care was the ridiculous heavy,heavy work load, fast pace, demanding family/patients, and tons of tasks/meds to the point it is impossible to get things done on time, and always at least one or two MRSA rooms. I imagine peds has some of the same of course...busy, busy and lots of tasks, admits & discharges. But I am also wanting to consider any and all options that might be a good fit for me. I wonder if I may be missing an area that I would actually enjoy. I don't mind busy, but I do mind feeling so slammed and rushed that I can barely think straight, and that's how it felt on med/surg.Thanks for the replies.

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Dec 30, 2012

A lot of what you describe not liking about med-surg is true of acute care peds. Your patients are smaller but you're still stretched to the limit, they're just as sick and they crash very quickly, the workload is heavy and the pace is fast, the families are as demanding if not more so (I only briefly worked med-surg when I was in school but saw nothing near the caliber of demanding families there as I saw in peds).

I love peds and would never, ever consider becoming an adult nurse... for me, getting out of the hospital all together was the best thing. I now work per-diem at a school and full time in peds home health. I love it.

Genista, BSN, RN · Dec 31, 2012

Thanks. To be honest, my "dream" would be public health maternal/child, some sort of educational/clinical role or working with teens, but there are NO jobs here for me in that area. At times I am considering leaving nursing because it is so stressful. However, I do love working part time and being home with my own kids, which seems to be a big advantage to the nursing jobs. I am looking at non-nursing jobs, but they are all full time & the pay is a fraction of what I make now. I have 10+ years experience as an RN, so it is not easy to just leave the profession. I think it is possible I might like peds, so I am tempted to at least apply.The hospital setting is the pits these days, but I have to provide income and my options are limited. Lately, when I apply for jobs I don't get a response, anyway (the market is saturated with RNs), so it wouldn't hurt to try. I am miserable in my current position. Thanks for your thoughts. :-)

Edited to add: I applied to the job. We'll see what happens.

rnfostermom, BSN, RN · Jan 2, 2013

I recently transferred from a unit that had a Pediatric "floor status" unit as well as a Peds ICU. I worked on the unit 2 years, almost always in the PICU. I transferred to accept a position for a better schedule on another unit, one that cares for patients of all ages (Burn). Before going to Peds I was a house float and it had been a unit I really enjoyed floating to so I decided to try it as my home unit. I really loved my time on Peds/PICU and I still love taking care of kids.

I would say that there are some big differences going to Peds and they may take some adjustment. First, all meds are weight-based (i.e., Xmg/mcg per Kg per day, etc.) I recommend ALWAYS looking up each med to make sure that it was ordered correctly for your patient. I work in a teaching hospital and have come across some erroneous orders written by residents that could have resulted in pretty bad outcomes had they been carried out. Don't count on pharmacy to catch the mistake either. Especially on nights. Make sure you know if the IV med requires dilution to a certain concentration (our pharmacy now does this for us, but they didn't in the fairly recent past and I still always double check). Make sure you know how fast it can be infused. Lots of things to verify before hanging a drug. Also, if you work in a PICU, you will find out that the little ones often need astonishing amounts of drugs to keep them adequately sedated if they are on a vent. And often the ET tubes are not cuffed and the little ones can extubate themselves rather easily. This never happened to me, thankfully. Also, be prepared to see some very sad cases, instances of horrific abuse, or suicide attempts, or stupid things a kid did for fun that had awful outcomes they never expected.

The thing that was most annoying about my time on Peds was working with families. Thankfully I had few problems overall, but the crazies I ran into were just plain horrible. Our PICU is a Level I trauma center and we get some very sick and injured kids. Enormous stress on the families and sometimes they really take it out on the staff. If their kid has a bad day or a bad outcome, it tends to get reflected back onto the nurse and it can make for some really uncomfortable situations. Once I had a Mom yell at me for 3 hours because she said it was my fault her brain injured child was tachycardic and had a high fever at the start of my shift. She told the Dr. that it was because I took too long suctioning and changing/turning the child! Really? That causes a fever of 39.1?? This Mom was also always trying to pit the nurses against each other, which we finally realized. Sometimes the families are just extremely chaotic to begin with and that causes all kinds of problems for the staff and the unit. Like the Mom who got mad when the nurse for her older child said she could not babysit her infant while she left the hospital for a while. This Mom also questioned EVERYTHING we did and in the ICU set up her recliner so close to the bed, on the side of the bed the nurse uses to care for the patient, that it was this huge production each time we needed access to the child. Very controlling! The parents might feel guilty about what caused their child to be in the hospital, or they have some mental health problems that are not being addressed. For one patient I had, the parents were very nice, but the grandmothers were like attack dogs! Definitely be prepared for this, because it will happen. I sure wish someone had warned me!!! It would not have changed my decision to go to Peds, but it would have helped me to be prepared for what might happen so I wouldn't beat myself up about it for days afterward.

I say if you are ready for a change, go for it. You are an experienced nurse and Peds experience will only add to your skills and knowledge -- and hopefully your job satisfaction. Best wishes!

Pistachio · Jan 2, 2013

I think you should maybe see abou shadowing a peds nurse. If your current hospital doesn't have a shadowing program ask around. Also maybe do some soul searching about exactly what is burning you out (I see you did that a bit) and try to think/find out if it would be different in peds. Just being somewhere news learning new thing might give you new motivation for the job though. Also I would considering calling the peds unit managers where you might be interested and say that you're thinking of trying a new area but wanted to know a bit more about it before putting effort into a job search and potential change of positions. And ask what kind of training g and support they give a non new grad. What's the patient ratio like what kind of unique responsiblities are there how is working with peds families different then other families.

Genista, BSN, RN · Jan 4, 2013

Thanks for the feedback rnfostermom & Pistachio. I think job shadow would be a good thing. Not sure if I am truly up for this or not. I am thinking maybe not...because I'm tired of working short staffed and the acute care rush, the stress. I don't mind rush once in awhile, but it was the all the time rush, hurry, never enough time flying by the seat of your pants, 12 hours of tasks to accomplish in 8 hrs thing that burned me out. If the peds unit call me, I'll talk to them about job shadow, staffing, training, etc. but I'm thinking maybe I ought to look for a slower pace job outside acute care...I do love kids, though. :-)