PNP with no peds experience

Published Sep 6, 2013

114 Posts

Specializes in Med/Surg.

I currently work as a RN at a large academic medical center. The only pediatrics we have is NICU and psych. Having worked many years with adults (as a PCA and RN), I am realizing more and more that I don't particularly like adult patients and I have always loved babies and kids. I also don't want to work in the hospital forever (although I love it now) so I figured PNP would be the perfect specialty.

While no peds experience is required, I'm sure it would be very helpful. Here's my dilemma. My current employer pays 100% of my tuition. If I leave and go to the children's hospital in my area, graduate school becomes $40,000. That's a big difference for someone still paying off undergraduate debt, having a car payment, and looking to buy a house within the next year.

Is leaving my employer to take a pay cut and guarantee another $40,000 in debt worth getting a few years of peds experience or will I be OK with adult experience only?

Currently, my only experience with peds is non-medical except for my peds rotation in nursing school. I babysat for many years and I worked as a tech in pediatric psych for 8 months. My best friend's mom is a pediatrician and I have shadowed her for approximately 80 hours.

As a side note, I have strongly considered transferring to the NICU. Would that be beneficial? I know it's strictly babies and not general peds, but is that better than nothing? I would do NNP except I think the non-hospital jobs are limited. While I love the in hospital acuity and my night shift now, later when I have a family, I want a week day only job and that's probably hard to come by as a NNP?

Thanks in advance!