Do even pediatric nurses get jaded?

ECUPirateRN · May 18, 2009

I don't work in an ED but I can say it can get tedious, especially in RSV/Flu season. Sometimes it is almost like "If I have to put on one more isolation gown or suck the snot out of one more nose...". I am sure there are different levels of burnout too. I know some peds nurses who have said that they have been burned out from our oncology popuation. I guess you can only see so many kids die before it gets to you. We just recently had about 5 deaths in a week.

I guess to me, everyone has the potential to be burned out after a while, even when you get to work with the coolest population ever!

llg, PhD, RN · May 18, 2009

Working in pediatrics is no sure fix to burnout. Peds nurses can get just as burned out and jaded as other nurses. It may manifest itself a little differently (less directed at the smaller children), but it happens.

Parents can be difficult to work with ... chronically ill children can learn to be very manipulative ... family disputes over control can be horrendous ... adolescents can be, well, adolecents ... etc. A children's hospital is not a perfect world

ECUPirateRN · May 18, 2009

Unfortunately, I think you can set yourself up for disappointment if you think peds nursing is always clowns and balloons and games and happiness and laughing. Sometimes you have to do some pretty horendous-seeming things to kids, like when you have to hold down a 3 day old baby with a fever while they attempt an LP and it takes multiple attempts to get fluid. Or when it takes 4 nurses to hold down a 5 year old to restart an IV. All the Synera in the world won't take away the scarinesss to that kid. Or when you hve to code a 3 month old b/c he pulled out his NG AGAIN and is aspirating on his feeds. It can be stressful. Not all the kids will love you. Some will say they hate you.

littleneoRN · May 18, 2009

Also remember that these cute little people sometimes come attached to those some kind of people that burn you out....they're called parents. :)

ECUPirateRN · May 18, 2009

Amen!!

PICNICRN, BSN, RN · May 21, 2009

I've been working with only kids for almost 15 years now, I can say that -trying as the parents may be, I could not imagine working with adults EVER! I can say that I would never have the patience for adults and their whining! "get me some water", "I need a warm blanket" Move my tissues closer"..... these are things that are much less annoying coming from a child that is afraid or cannot do things for themselves.

That being said.... I have worked Peds ED and have seen many parents bring in their kid for the most rediculous things- "cough", "fever", and my favorite "did not have any tylenol at home". Sometimes they are not just "young parents who are scared or don't know any better"- they are just playing the system. But, I still think that game is easier with a kid than an adult.

To answer your question... I think 100 common Pediatric colds is much less annoying than 100 adult colds! :twocents:

NurseKayla · May 23, 2009

For me the burn out rest with the parents, who allow their children to bite, spit, kick, and scream bad things directly to me--without any discipline.

sunflrz321 · May 25, 2009

Yes, you still do get jaded as a pediatrics nurse. But I have worked in many different areas of peds- peds psych, peds ICU, peds pulmonary, and general peds, and I can tell you that across the board, there is more hope when you work with peds, and that is what keeps us going.

As some of the other posters mentioned, parents and RSV season and family dynamics are some of the frustrations. Another frustration is that typically around 50-75% of the families are spanish-speaking-only, and these families very often take advantage of the system- always asking for extra formula and diapers and free meal tickets. And it can be tiring basically being the professional meanie.

Pediatricians who don't know what they are doing are another frustration. There are many spanish-speaking pediatricians who are absolutely horrible doctors, but they set up practices in a predominantly hispanic town several towns away from our hospital, because they know that SSO parents will choose a bad spanish speaking pediatrician over a good pediatrician who does not speak any spanish. These doctors take medicaid, etc and nearly all of their patients are on it, so they have to see more patients in a day to survive, & don't have time to spend proper time on each patient, even if they could deliver good care in that time. The hospital in that town does not have a peds ICU, so all of their sick kids are sent to us. What is interesting is that of the good pediatricians in the area, they manage their patients so well on an outpatient basis that we almost never see their patients inpatient, and only once in a blue moon in the peds ICU. But the bad pediatricians who don't know how to manage something as simple as asthma or pneumonia- well, we see their kids in the PICU all the time.

Moss1222 · May 27, 2009

I worked many years in a wonderful children's hospital and loved it. I must say that I never really got tired of the children, but the parents were another story. When they came to the ED for a diaper rash at 3am, when their child couldn't sleep, and the child had the rash for a week already, it was very difficult to not be annoyed. But I tried to never show it. I had never walked in their shoes.

My answer is: burn out is much less of a problem in peds than adults. Most of the children were scared or miserable (ie in pain or very sick) at first, bounced back quickly, and were adorable before they went home. It was very rewarding and some of the best memories of my lifetime. I wouldn't give up that career path for the world. It also prepared me for parenting-a huge plus.

scribblerpnp · May 29, 2009

I'm a PNP and yes, I get jaded at times.

Especially when I have a parent talking or playing with their iPhone during the exam, but who can't afford Tylenol to give their child. Or a sixteen year old cries like a baby and has to practically be run down to give her the gardisil vaccine. Or a 9-year-old throws a see-and-say at your head and the parent just shrugs.

Every job has its moments. You just have to have an idea of what you are willing to put up with.

And I would like to meet a peds nurse who doesn't SOMETIMES relish giving those vaccines to the bratty kids.

My job would probably be easier without parents. Some really don't know how to raise a kid, and no amount of teaching on my part seems to help.

But I would rather be a garbage collector than take care of adults 100% of the time. The only adult pt I have ever liked was my mama when she was sick.

Poop, pee and vomit just aren't as bad coming out of a 2 month old vs an 80 year old.

sunflrz321 · Jun 2, 2009

And I would like to meet a peds nurse who doesn't SOMETIMES relish giving those vaccines to the bratty kids.

That is SO true!

Right now we are in late spring and thus moving away from the season of peds respiratory cases, and into the season of irresponsible teenager cases. Recently I was getting report from ER on yet another 14yr old with a near-lethal ETOH level, and the peds ER nurse told me how whenever they get drunk kids in the ER (every weekend in the spring & summer), they call the parents in and make THEM hold the puke bucket while their child vomits for hours. They figure the parents need a bit of a lesson too.

And recently I had yet another "suicide attempt"- more like "cry for attention from my boyfriend"- and anyway she ended up with low potassium for a short time. K was not compatible with her IV meds, & she was tolerating PO, so we gave it to her orally. I have to admit, as she gagged down those two monstrous K-Dur pills (I swear they are the biggest pills I've ever seen)- I thought "Maybe THIS will make her never want to swallow another pill again."

(Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of serious and legitimate suicide attempts, but this was not one of them).