i want to work in NICU

dawnebeth · Mar 11, 2009

I had a difficult time reading your post, but I believe you're still in high school? What I did from the time that I was 13 years old was take care of small children. I babysat every chance that I could and helped in the local Sunday school at church to have experience with children. Later, I became a nanny at the end of high school and in early college (I ended up with an acting degree before I went to nursing school). All this experience really helped me know a lot about babies and small children, and that I really wanted to take care of them as a nurse. In nursing school, usually, the students are not allowed to care for children and babies, except during pediatrics rotation, but I always asked if I could when I saw children in other departments (like microsurgery, for instance.) We also had to work in a preschool during our pediatric rotation, which was a lot of fun for me.

Once I graduated, I immediately applied only to hospitals with peds floors, and also, the only children's hospital in our area. I never did adult med/surg, which many nursing students are told to do. I didn't want to take care of adults--and luckily, was quickly hired at the children's hospital. The only openings were in the ICN, which I didn't know much about since I had never done an internship in an ICN the way some students do now, but it was a perfect fit for me--with all my experience with babies! The first year was really hard, since it takes a lot of specialized knowledge to work in an ICN, which can only learned on the job, but it was worth it.

Stick with your goals and just keep moving forward toward nursing school.

Dawn