Transitioning from adults to pediatrics

[Sassybottom]

Experiences or insights into transition from adult care to pediatric care

If you are a strong pediatric nurse does this make you a strong adult nurse

Is the pediatric population more challenging (due to stress of parents, patients`inability to communicate, more rapid changes in condition, etc)

than the adult population

*sorry, my question mark key is not working right now*

[Quickbeam, BSN, RN]

I was a Pediatric nurse for 10 years before I transitioned to adult care. I found it very easy to make that change. Everything in Pediatrics is carefully titrated to weight, tiny amounts of everything make a huge difference. The one thing I can say is that general pediatrics did not prepare me for was cardiovascular issues. Kids with heart problems were generally on their own ICU and the general peds population I dealt with (CF, Ortho, brain injured, liver/kidney transplant) had few cardiac issues.

Some things, in no random order, that are specific to Peds:

Very nervous parents. Sometimes expecting you to 1:1 their child.

Children with chronic asthma, not well maintained.

Weighing diapers.

Tiny veins.

Abuse of every stripe....burned and broken bodies at the hands of others can be hard to take.

Well meaning signs on beds by parents such as "leave my child alone at night" when the patient needs hourly vitals.

You do a ton of teaching for both parents and children.

[llg, PhD, RN]

I don't like to get into the mindset that some specialties are "harder" or "more challenging" than others. In most cases, that perspective doesn't help much. Each specialty has its own unique challenges and advantages -- and what might suit one person well won't suit another.

When transitioning from one specialty to another, I believe the more important consideration is the mindset of the person making the transition. Some people are very flexible in their ways of doing things and find change to be relatively easy. Others need the comfort and security of their usual practices and judgments in order to be comfortable taking responsibility for the well-being of a patient. For those people, it's harder to switch specialties because their old ways of doing things or thinking about things no longer applies and that makes them very uncomfortable.

What are YOUR thoughts about the transition? How do you handle it when you feel a little "off balance" because you are not in your usual environment and your usual ways of thinking and acting may not be appropriate?