crazybusyRN

NICU was my first specialty (for 3 years), but I found that I wanted to "branch out" a bit, so I went to a peds CICU. Because a lot of pediatric heart disease is congenital, it's still a lot of babies, but because adult cardiologists are sometimes wary of congenital heart disease, we get patients up into their 40s! I didn't have any trouble getting this job, and the NICU skills help... I can always expect my pager to go off with lots of questions if we get a kiddo little enough to be in an isolette. The tradeoff is that I ask lots of questions of my coworkers with adult experience. The first time I had to use a lift to move a patient was definately an adventure! It can be done, and I found that orienting to my second job was challenging, but not as much as the first time, because I could ask for what I needed more clearly. Now I'm the preceptor! Hope this helps...

Hi there- I guess I would be a nurse ethicist-in-training. I did a Master's in Bioethics concurrently with my MSN (an NP program), which I will finish in August. The ethics degree is done, though. Yes, it was through a medical school. Yes, it was very medicine-focused. But I personally found it fun to be the "voice of nursing" when my classmates would go off on the physician-patient relationship. Nurses are at the bedside for 8 or 12 hours, and it is amazing the things we hear from families. Let me know if I can give you any more info...

Hi, not sure if you're even still looking for replies... I don't often comment on here, I just lurk, but I felt bad, I know how it is to be a student. I don't think the nurses here are unwilling to help you- they ARE helping you, by letting you know what a research paper usually entails. Personal anecdotes, and information from individuals on the internet is not usually what is meant by "research" for a paper. As someone else pointed out, you need objetive information... Have you ever used CINAHL? It is a database for nursing articles, and I'm sure a librarian could help you to access it. It would be a good way to start finding sources for your paper. PubMed/Ovid is another health sciences database, but it's less nursing-specific. You could also search back issues of good nursing journals and magazines. Some that are a little less technical include NursingSpectrum, RN, or Advance for Nurses. They may give you some info in simple English that you can then build on. More technical journals include AJN (American Journal of Nursing), and there are many specialty journals for each of those specialties. MCN (Maternal Child Nursing) may tell you about L and D and peds. This is just a place to start, and may be a little less frustrating than asking everyone for such broad-based information. Hope it helped!

OK, I was thinking about your post, and had to reply. You sound like you could be one of my orientees, so I'll tell you what I tell them... Do you feel that your preceptors think you're too slow because they said something, or because you can't do things like they can? They have been doing this for years (hopefully). It's OK to not be like they are, and if they are good preceptors, they don't expect that of you. The goal of orientation is to help you become a competent, safe, NOVICE nurse. It's a learning curve LONG after orientation (actually, forever). And OK, maybe carrying around a binder of key info isn't feasible, but why not notecards? Or take a look at how your labs requisition slips look... odds are it tells you right on there which tube to use. The key for the information overload of learning in a critical care environment is, don't memorize what you could look up. Can't imagaine a situation in which you can't take a minute to look that up... focus on things that are need to know, like how to deal with emergencies. And the last thing is... try to breathe. Critical care IS hard, especially with babies. It's easy to feel overwhelmed about such a lot of tubes and wires in such a small body, and managing all of it is hard! Trust your preceptors, and ask for feedback, so you don't just hear that voice in your head saying, you could have done that better. Hear THEIR voices saying, you've come a long way! You did great with X, and next time we'll work more on Y. Hang in there!

CHOP uses both RRTs and RNs, but the RNs are VERY experienced (mostly in one of the CHOP ICUs). I'd say 5 years experience is the average, many have more. They do VV and VA ECMO, and most can be called to any of the 3 ICUs (N/IC, PICU, CICU), so training is extensive.

Can I still post in this forum as an RN? I hope so, because I think I have a good near death story for you. In the ICU I work in, we had a really nasty code in a teenager who had come in for elective surgery. It was ugly, but we got him back, and better than that, he was neurologically intact. Absolutely a miracle. Anyway, afterwards, one of my coworkers who had also been involved in the code asked this kid if he remembered anything. He said he remembered lots of yelling, go get this, I need that, that sort of thing. Then he said he couldn't hear the yelling anymore because he was with God. And he asked God, did I die? And God said, no, watch, they're going to save you... and he and God watched the rest of the code. After he recovered, this kid would identify members of the staff and say, I saw you there saving me! He had been on our unit about an hour pre-arrest (postop patient), and we were all strangers to him when the code began. But he knew who was there, and could recognize faces and voices from the time he spent watching us with God.

I never held blowby with one hand and rubbed a 5yo's head with the other because she said "I don't feel good, please don't leave me" (she was intubated within 20 minutes, kids always know when they're in medical trouble). I never knew that a life that lasts hours or days can have every bit as much impact as one that lasted 80 years. I never knew every cartoon character you can name, and the accompanying songs, despite having no kids of my own. I never saw a baby turn that horrible gray-green color that you know means death is imminent. I never knew that I would gaurd binkies, security blankets, and teddy bears with my life, because if you lose them, you might as well give up on having a good shift. I never thought that a big gummy smile or a toddler's "fank yoo" could make up for a whole day of crying the moment I walk in the door.

Hope I'm not getting the thread off topic... I'm not in Boston, but I do work in a peds cardiology ICU (at a major children's hosp). It's a great specialty! And in many places, there are opportunities for new grads. But be aware, the congenital heart stuff covered in most nsg programs, and seen in most hospitals, is really different from what you see at the handful of big peds cardiology centers. It's a steep learning curve, with very sick kiddos with HLHS, TAPVR, and lots of oddball combo defects. It's an intense ICU environment, and if you love that (like I do) it's a great place to be. Don't know if this is helpful, but I get excited when there's something on these boards about peds card, so I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents! :wink2:

Hi, everyone- I read this site all the time, and I'm hoping all you smart nurses will have some opinions for me. Had my first class of the semester today in a class on the ethics of vaccination. Sounds like a really interesting course. Well, now I'm trying to brainstorm term paper ideas so I don't find myself halfway through the semester with no clue what to write about. I would like to incorporate something of nursing since I'm the only nurse in the class. So, here's my question: what's your vaccine pet peeve? Are you annoyed that you are asked to get a flu shot, or prove that your immunizations are up to date? Do you have issues with giving vaccines to patients? For our international members, are there other issues in your home countries? Thanks a lot!!!

I was on my second day of orientation at my first real job as an RN- in NYC. We were listening to really boring lectures (in the subbasement of a hospital building, far from the towers) on things like body mechanics, and which things to plug into red outlets, and the woman sitting next to me was covertly listening to her walkman. She whispered what she heard on the news to me. Not much later the official announcement came in, and we were given the option of going home or staying and being put to work. I managed to contact my family (who were not in the city) to tell them I was safe, and then went to the hospital. I worked at the hospital that housed the major burn center, and so they were mobilizing to take a large influx of patients (that sadly never came). I was sent to a med-surg floor, where I spent the afternoon taking vitals on the whole hallway, answering phones, and doing any busywork I could to allow the "real" nurses to concentrate on discharging anyone they could and covering for coworkers who were unable to make it in. I caught little bits of the news on the TVs in patient rooms.