Peds/Neuro Advice

[Quinticx]

Hello!

So I am a current BSN student. I know I want to go into Pediatric Neurosurgery, and plan on getting my DNP at some point in the near future. I am looking for jobs for after I graduate, and am running into some issues. The hospital I would love to work for is only hiring in the Adult Neurosurgery unit, however, a different children's hospital in my area is hiring, but not for any neuroscience/neurosurgery unit.

I was wondering, which would be best for applying to Pediatric Acute DNP programs? I would love to work with neuro, but I really want to do pediatrics. I didn't know which would be an easier transition, Adult neuro to pediatric neuro or pediatric to pediatric neuro.

Thanks!

[llg, PhD, RN]

I'd take the peds job. Getting into peds can be tough. But once you are known as a good peds nurse, it's usually not that hard to change specialties.

[PeakRN]

If you are planning on pursuing PNP-AC with your DNP you will find a lot of difficulty getting a job without pediatric acute care experience. Keep in mind that many kids who are being treated for neurological conditions have multiple concomitant disease processes, and they are often patients on other pediatric floors or units.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Peds to peds.

I worked peds neuro for the first 5 years of my career. Rarely will you find a peds neurosurgery only unit- if the Children's Hospital has a neuro unit, it will likely be general neurology + neurosurgery (+/- neuro-oncology depending on the hospital). My unit was Neurology, Neurosurgery, Epilepsy and Neuro-Oncology. In some hospitals, neuro-onc patients are on the general heme/onc floor once they get to the chemo portion of their treatment. Because my unit was part of medicine, part of oncology and part of surgery, we got overflow patients from every unit in the hospital, except cardiology. Those kids didn't go to other units.