NurseLeah

Brina, You've probably heard this before, but it sounds like regardless of what you decide you would like to do it might make a lot of sense for you to take a year or two after graduation and work as a nurse on a general pediatric floor or PICU. This will give you a chance to find out what types of pts and work really interest you and what you should avoid. You can make sure that working pediatrics lives up to your expectations and then start grad school armed with some valuable clinical experience (many schools require 1-2 yrs of clinical experience from applicants anyway). In the meantime you may want to try shadowing PNPs from various settings to get a feel for what they do and what options you have. Many PNPs do work in inpatient settings, including PICU and NICU. You may want to contact those floors at a hospital near you to see if they could help you get in contact with someone you could shadow. Good luck! Leah

When I first graduated from nursing school 2 years ago I was hired onto a Neuro ICU on a large unit that enjoys extremely high acuity pts. This made my first year pretty stressful (an understatement) however I feel I've done fairly well and am now helping others through their first year. I will be relocating soon however and feel I might like to broaden my knowledge by trying other aspects of ICU. PICU has always been an interest, but I do not have any experience in peds and wonder if I would essentially need to start over (I'm not sure I'm ready for that again). Is there anyone out there who has moved from adult ICU to PICU who could give some insight?