Does your hospital have peds neuroscience? What do they do?

[loveoutloud]

So I really want to become a peds neuro nurse, with the eventual intent of getting my masters to be an epilepsy educator. What do the nurses in neuroscience do? IS there a lot of dealing with kids with seizures?

Is there a better peds unit to work on that would better prepare me for my master plan?

[umcRN, BSN, RN]

I'm not sure what their "life" is like since I don't work there but my hospital does have a neuro unit (it's a children's hospital) and a part of the PICU is typically reserved for neuro kiddos. I imagine in kids it's a lot more than just seizures of course. There are all kinds of neurological deficits children can be born with or acquire through life. Some that come to mind are neuromuscular disorders such as SMA, other disorders like hydocephalous, spina bifida, after effects of traumas. It could go on. And where do the brain tumor kiddos go? To the oncology unit or the neuro unit? When I was in the (adult) hospital for a brain tumor I was in the neuro unit. And kids have strokes too, I think you would see all sorts of things on a neuro unit including seizure disorders

[Annaiya, NP]

In my hospital there are 4 places with neuro kids. First, the PICU get all critically ill kids and we see a lot of neuro. Second, we have an epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) where they do video EEGs, with and with out grids, nuclear scans with contrast during and not-during seizures, etc. Then the post-surgical neuro kids go to our general surgical floor, so these are things like EVDs or VP shunt revisions, spinal fusions and craniotomies that just need to heal and go home. Then lastly we have a neuro rehab unit that takes all of the TBIs and tumor resections and things that will need more long term rehab before being able to go home. Anyone seen by the oncology service would be either in the PICU or the oncology floor.

If you are interested in epilepsy specifically, then I think an EMU would be the ideal unit, since that is all you would work with. It is a highly specialized field and I thought it was interesting when I worked there. If you want an ICU environment there are some children's hospitals that are big enough to have a neuro ICU. We see a fair amount of kids where they can't stop the seizures and they have to be intubated to protect their airway. So it just depends what interests you most.