shoul I start my career in Pediatric?

[Fireflynurse]

Hi all, I am getting ready for my Nclex exam in Oct so I am mostly concentrate in my study. But I do have some concerns about which area to go in after I pass my board so I was wondering if anyone in the pediatric field can share some insights with me. I have one job offer in a long term pediatric care nursing home and another almost certain offer for a job in an elementary school. They are waiting for me to pass my exam but my concerns about going to pediatric care makes me hesitated. I love children and I have two school age kids but I feel that I am very bad nor not prepared for such an important role in pediatric nursing. My school grade for pediatric wasn't bad. It was a B+ but when I am doing review, I found that I remember very few things about pediatric nursing. I sucked in that portion and feel so unprepared. Just to think about taking care of the very sick children in nursing home or be responsible for a school full of children without any experience concerns me. Is my worry valid? Although the DON in both places said they will train me but experiences is very important and specially for taking care of kids, right? I feel so overwhelmed just to think about it. Is love to care for kids really enough? I need your 2 cents please:)

[EricaAngela90]

I think it all depends on the level of care you want to provide. LTC and school nursing are very different. I think it's easier to get a job going from LTC peds to a higher level than from school nursing. I have a few people on the unit that i work on now who did peds long term care and now they are doing PICU. You might also wanted to look at a residency program. Some people will tell you to start in med surg, while others might just say go for it. I did my internship in a PICU my junior year of college and that's all I've ever done since then.

It's hard caring for the little ones especially ones that are very sick or chronically ill. I think it takes a little more than love for children, but that's a good start.