Surgical Care Unit Interview

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Jan 12, 2015

Hello morefab86! Welcome to allnurses.com, the world's largest social network for nurses on the Web. Congratulations on your interview! I can't speak to Children's in DC specifically but I can maybe give you some general tips. You can expect the typical questions about interpersonal communication and prioritization that would be asked anywhere. As far as surgical peds, there will be some growth-and-development questions about gaining cooperation from children in pain, whose first exposure to health care might be this admission. For example, if your patient is a five year old post-op internal fixation of a femur fracture, there will be things you'll have to get them to do, like let you take their vitals, turn in bed, incentive spirometry, take some oral meds... how do you get them to cooperate with care? You'll also be expected to teach both parent and child about the surgery and its aftermath. There might be some questions about that. They might slip in some questions about appropriate doses of analgesics (15 mg/kg Tylenol, 0.05 mg/kg morphine, 0.5 mg/kg ketorolac IV, 4-10 mg/kg ibuprofen etc), when antibiotic prophylaxis is required and some questions about PCA or epidurals. Emergency management will focus first on airway and breathing because children have very small airways and heavy heads; arrests typically are respiratory in origin. If you can get a feel for the types of surgery most commonly performed at Children's you'll be able to review a little bit about the biggest ones. Don't stress too much about the interview; if you can find a way to reveal a sense of humor it'll be a good thing. Best wishes!!