Primary care/outpatient?

[nursing9462]

What is it like working as an RN at a primary care office (pediatrics)? Pros/cons? Did you like it?

[Nunya, BSN]

I worked at a military peds clinic but I'm sure they're basically the same. A lot depends on how many and what kind of procedures they do. We did neb treatments, ear lavages for wax/foreign objects, IVs for emergencies, blood draws, imms, circs, urinary caths. Those were the interesting times in between the boredom of well baby/child visits. The problem with those was that even though parents may have brought them in for something like asthma some of them would get really irritated if they actually had to stay longer than just the 15 min visit, so we got to deal with that. And like any other place it could get crazy and sometimes people had to wait and that made them cranky. And as the RN we did most of this, the one LPN we had worked imms mostly. The good thing was we got out on time most of the time but that was because we always had a "late nurse" scheduled. Most of us worked 7-4:00, she worked 8-5:00 (one hour unpaid lunch). I much prefer inpatient but most of the people there liked clinic nursing, I think because if the regular hours and no weekends or holidays.