Devinthebrave

Hello all! I am a 16 year nurse with a majority of my career being spent in the pediatric intensive care unit. A year ago, I transitioned into the clinical educator position for my unit and began working on the completion of my BSN. I have now finished my BSN and am considering going on to obtain my master's degree (MSN-ED). I am super excited to advance my education and career opportunities but I am also a little cautious. This is for multiple reasons. I love my job and could see myself doing this until my retirement. I am very interested in improving my abilities to be an effective educator in any way. However, I'm not sure there is much room for improving my rate of pay in my current role, even if I do get my MSN. Becoming a clinical nurse specialist would be something I am also interested in but, at the moment, there are no opportunities for this type of role at my hospital. I have never seen myself in academia before but, then again, I never expected to love being a clinical nurse educator so much either. I don't see myself as an NP at this juncture. I do not wish to work with adults and the NP field is fairly flooded around my area due to an abundance of nursing schools. I would say that the percentage of people I know with an NP in my area who are either employed as a bedside RN or who took a job they weren't necessarily interested in after obtaining their NP is around 35%. Anyway, here's my question. If I commit to an MSN-ED and find that I can't recoup my investment, or want to move on into a different role, how difficult would it be for me to do this? Anyone have experience with obtaining an MSN-ED and then transitioning to a CNS role or NP role? Would I have to obtain a post-masters certificate? Just really looking to hear other people's experiences.

Sorry to be away for so long. Chare, we restricted visitation in years past to absolutely no children under the age of 13, which was standard for most hospital units at the time we opened (circa Late 1970's). That rule was never modified but many nurses and physicians basically did what they thought was right in any situation and ignored the rule. Some doctors would tell families they could bring young siblings anytime while others said never. Same inconsistency occurred between charge nurses. I don't think I need to tell anyone that the inconsistencies brought about a lot of confusion and frustration for all involved parties. Our unit has been, historically, physician driven. I just took this role as educator and the manager just assumed her position as well. We are slowly trying to change our unit to nurse-driven policies and this was the first one we tackled, as it had been a pet project of mine that was going nowhere with the management we previously had. So, while we boast being family centered, getting our physicians to comply and agree with open visitation for young siblings isn't happening. Also, our unit has only undergone minimal upgrades since it was built. We still have multiple open bay bed spaces which leads to clutter, traffic and a lot of noise. This would all be a different story if the unit were more modernized and everyone had private rooms. We have 14 rooms in our unit. 4 of those "rooms" are actually double occupancy patient rooms and 5 are open bays separated by curtains. We run ECMO and CRRT and cannot afford to have small children in the unit at any and all times because of the fragility of the circuits and equipment. So, all that said, here is what we did. We researched other children's hospitals and came up with a working model. I must say that the main reason we got senior physician sign off was that our physician champion was able to site multiple other hospitals which were far more liberal in their policies. We established a period of one hour daily for young sibling visits between 5-6pm. This is a good time for us because physicians are in hand off in a private office and most tasks should be done for the day. This time is only offered to siblings. No cousins or friends unless it is a death situation. It must be scheduled with the charge nurse at least 24h in advance to allow us to coordinate with child life, who MUST be involved if it is the sibling's first visit, and to have a sort of "cooling off" period for the parent to ensure the visit is needed and beneficial to both the patient and the sibling. No children under three are allowed to visit at all. We haven't had any complaints from staff since the roll out. The only parent complaints I have received are from chronic families who have been here in the past and were allowed to do as they pleased at any time. And some inconsistency between staff when we first rolled out caused frustration for parents. It's a work in progress but it seems it will work for us for now.

So, I was a school nurse in a preschool setting where this was also an issue. I devoted a portion of our professional development to the topic because of it. I explained how it was spread and that most of us have already been exposed. It’s just like any other virus. I told my teachers not to lick the kid or drink from his sippy cup and they should be fine. If she’s that worried, she can go to her doctor and have her titers drawn to see is she’s immune. Then maybe she’ll feel better.

Hello! I am working on developing a guideline for sibling visits in the PICU where I am the nurse educator. When I first began working in my unit, about 12 years ago, we did not allow any children under the age of 13 years at the bedside unless a patient was dying. Since I then, we have become very inconsistent for when and how we allow young siblings to visit. Often, depending on which intensivist and/or charge nurse was on duty. We recently rolled out a new visitation policy and I am working with child life to figure out the best plan for sibling visits that would be consistent, safe and supportive of both the patient and their family. I'm interested to hear the practice in your institution. For reference, we are a 14 bed unit, 9 of those are private or double occupancy. The others are in an open bay, separated by curtains. We run CRRT and ECMO occasionally.