Pediatric Outpatient Clinic

[catlove]

Hi nurses!

For my clinical, I have been placed in a pediatric outpatient clinic. I have never worked with peds or even in an outpatient clinic so I'm a little nervous. Can anyone fill me in on what a nurse on an pediatric outpatient clinic will encounter throughout the day? How is the workload? What types of medical issues/illnesses are common? And what type of skills can student nurses develop in this type of atmosphere?

Thanks so much for your help!

:)

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

What clinical is this? Pediatrics? Community? Preceptorship?

Nurses do all kinds of things in outpatient pediatrics... in many clinics, they do primarily phone triage. As far as patients go, they'll run the gamut. You'll have your standard well child checks with the routine immunizations thrown in for good measure, you'll have your run-of-the-mill childhood illnesses- ear infections, strep throat, etc, and then you'll have what you think is a run-of-the-mill childhood illness that actually turns out to be cancer.

You can develop a LOT of skills working in this environment. You'll have plenty of options to practice giving shots, there will be teaching and there will be LOTS of communicating with parents.

[catlove]

Hi again,

Thank you for the quick response. It is my last and final year in school so this involves me having a preceptor and it's pediatrics. I was hoping for more skills involving trachs, IV's, feeding tubes as I need more hands-on experience with those skills rather then injections but this is where they placed me and what I recieved. I will make the best out of it! Thanks for your input!

[28andcountn]

Hi catlove-

if you have never really worked with kids before this is a great opportunity for you. You can always get your trach and tube experiences during a job orientation in the hospital and if that is where you decide to go after school you will get alot of those opportunities on any med/surg unit.

My advice would be to take in all you can about normal child development and growth and how to interact with children. This is valuable knowledge! If you don't know what typical is you can't pick up on what is not typical so it is really good to know what normal looks like.

I would make sure to identify different age group milestones in development before you clinical then look for examples of those milestones in real life.

You will probably get a good deal of practice with heights weights OFCs etc. Immunizations and lead testing are routine as well and by the way giving shots to kids is a whole different world that giving them to adults.

Above all enjoy you pediatric experience - kids are great fun.