Pros and Cons of Working for Hospital for Sick Children

[mamaonamission]

Peds isn't for everyone, that's for sure. I know I could not work with the elderly. That's not to say that I don't love elderly people, because I have the greatest affection and respect for them. I just can't nurse them. My hat is off to those who work in long-term care; their job is just as difficult as mine and receives about as much respect from the powers that be. In peds, if you don't work with neonates or oncology patients, you're invisible.

Could you elaborate on that, Pedi-Gree? I know there are unspoken nuances of how the different areas of nursing are viewed, and am curious as to why ped nurses would not be given their due?

[Pedi-Gree, BSN, RN]

In every hospital I've ever worked at, there have been obvious differences in how money is doled out, for example. When the PICU of one hospital desperately needed an assortment of equipment, and NICU wanted new monitors, NICU got their monitors and PICU was told to come back next year. When the local children's hospital foundation handed out the money they raised using stories about children who had survived critical illness, the PICU was never even mentioned in most of the stories and mostly the credit was (is) given to the doctors. Thousands of foundation dollars were spent on PlayStations, DVD players, DVDs, toys and other niceties, while PICU got two battery-operated clocks. A local radio station does an annual fundraising radiothon for the foundation and every other year they do one for the oncology ward. Kids with cancer and sick newborns tug at the heart strings and are made more visible to the public than older children who might have spent months in hospital with metablic disorders, traumatic injuries, recovering from transplants, complications from disabilities and so on. And of course, research money is poured into neonatology and oncology by the bucketful. Not much pediatric reserach is funded at even close to those levels and there's certainly no big fanfare.

Perfect example: I have the TV on and when I heard the name of our local Children's Hospital my ears perked up. Oh wait, they're talking about a program for educating parents in NICU. :grn:

[linzz]

Thanks for speaking out Pedi-Gree, you are have made some interesting points. Patients don't see the equipment shortages, they just see that there are lots of toys on the unit and isn't that nice. What they don't see is the nurse scrambling around looking for supplies.