ittybabyRN

I don't think this person realizes how dangerous this could be, you don't just "learn" icu while you have a crashing patient, the drugs, drips, procedures and even certain scopes of nursing practice are very different and doing so would put these patients, as well as nurses license in extreme risk

We change drips every 72 hrs, if we think the kid will bottom out we start the drips running on a new pump for a few minutes and then change over quick

I would also like to know. I am a new grad...well I guess I was a year ago anyways while I love my unit I get pretty bored with the feeder/growers and am looking into travelling/working elsewhere eventually. Would love to work in a level 3 that is mostly just that and sends kids out when they reach a certain stability

We also start with bolus feeds and see how they tolerate it. It can also depend on the baby's attending on how they are fed goes too. No set protocol

I work in DC in a 54 bed level 3c unit. We have 46 private rooms and 2 4bed pods. We have level 2/3 mixed (no stepdown or intermediate area). We often have 1:1's, the usual is 2:1 and rarely we have 3:1. A 3:1 assignment would be feeder/growers only or feeders mixed with NPO's but no vents/frequent labs etc, and we only have 3:1's when we are short or have quite a few critical pts. Ratios are based on how acute the pt is or how "needy" a pt is. ECMO/HFOV/Cooling/PPHN kids are generally 1:1. Other than that it depends on what the kid is doing to warrant a 1:1 assignment. We very rarely have 2 vents paired. Admits are usually paired unless the kid coming is really sick and then the admitting nurse would have to give up her babies.

I work in nicu and some of those supposed to still be fetuses have the same type of skin. We use replicare as a barrier under the tape and a special adhesive remover that unsticks the tape from skin to get it off w/o tears

I'm pretty sure that's something you need to claqrify with your pedi but I will tell you, I work in nicu and we use albuterol nebs all the time, not sure about the others though

I don't think we have any policy, just depends on how acute/busy the pt is. Any hfov/cooling/ecmo/cvvh, pd kid will be 1:1. Kids on pressors may be paired depending on how stable they are on their pressor. We pair vents if they're stable as well and kids going to/having surgery are also paired if the procedure is expected to be minor

Movies?! Yipes! I work in a private room unit and not even the parents get to watch tv!

Once in the nicu always in the nicu, I have spoken to a few nurses where I work since I've only been here a year, kids never get tx to picu, if they are d/c and readmitted and no longer nicu material (over 3moos) they will go to picu but kids never tx from nicu to picu...we just celebrated a first birthday last week...

We have PA's. They work on the same team as the NNP's under the same attending and have the same scope of practice (at least I haven't noticed any difference between having an NNP baby or a PA baby)

We had to cross train to PICU and CICU as soon as we got off orientation (6mos). I have to say, I liked the CICU better and hope to try working there someday, and when I floated to PICU they gave me a 14 year old!:uhoh21: I did not speak up and while he was a stable walkie talkie he did have a clotting disorder and was on heparin therapy which is why he was in ICU, I can tell you I have never had a more nervewracking day. Usually they do give us babies or our grads but they had 4 of us from NICU that day and they wanted to give me the most stable kid they had left over...next time I will speak up, I can code a baby but that 14 year old was totally out of my scope

this exact thread appears in the NICU forum: A Day in the Life of a NICU Nurse - Nursing for Nurses

This is a little off topic but something I have been wondering for a while...I work in a NICU and we don't hang blood with anything, we just run it alone as is. I have floated to the PICU/PCICU but did not at those times ask the question...at what point do you start hanging blood with NS? Is there a certain age, weight? Just curious, thanks!

What I did was start with looking at all the states major children's hospitals, teaching hospitals and hospitals with large women/infant programs. Typically if you start with the area of the Children's hospitals there is likely to also be a large adults hospital nearby and those usually have NICU's too...and then pretty much where ever you figure out where the large children's hospitals and teaching hospitals are, there are usually a few other smaller hospitals in those areas as well. Looking for smaller more suburban hospitals will be a little trickier