Infant vs. school-aged unit

[woodnymph]

Hi all,

I am soon to be entering my pediatric clinical at a children's hospital, and have the choice t select my first and second preferences for which unit to go to.

The choices are Infant/preschool medicine, school-aged medicine, and all ages med-surg.

I am trying to decide and wondered if someone could fill me in on the differences between infant/preschool and school-aged. What will I be seeing a lot of on each type of unit? Is there a reason to choose one over the other? I don't really fell that I have enough knowledge about the units to choose, so I'd love feedback from those who have worked on these type of floors.

Thanks!

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Infant unit will probably be a lot of congenital malformations, school aged unit could be anything.

Honestly I worked in a pediatric hospital and the floors were separated by specialty, not age, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect from a hospital that separates their peds floors that way. I would imagine the diagnoses could overlap- a baby with CF will still have CF when he's 7, for example.

[humerusRN]

My floors are somewhat separated by age, but really it's only for surgical patients. My guess is this time of year, the infant floor will be full of bronchiolitis and RSV. Respiratory season has already started with a bang at my hospital. Other "baby" issues are irritating things like pyloric stenosis. Ugh, I hate taking care of pylo babies. You may get some non accidental trauma with that age group - shaken babies, etc. I'd go with school aged - you will probably see a more of a variety of conditions (because older kids get into more trouble!). Broken bones, appys, asthma, pneumonia, SBO, etc.