Munchkin Nursing

Since almost three weeks ago, I am a pediatric nurse. Our department houses both adults and children. For almost the last year, I have been working solely on the adult end of the unit. It has been a nice change of pace to work with the kids and their families rather than off in "adult land". In addition to working with a different patient population, I've also been working during daylight hours. Although the daylight thing will be soon be coming to an end (I'm going back to nights on Saturday), at least I'll have even more nursing experience under my belt that can take me elsewhere if I want to some day. We're losing one of our pediatric nurses to a different shift and another to maternity leave soon. Therefore, I'll probably be working with the kids a lot on nights. Our pediatric population fluctuates, which means I'll still be working with adults most of the time too. Having adult and pediatric patients at the same time will be a challenge, but it will keep me on toes and out of trouble.

The worst thing about pediatric nursing....Taking IVs out of young kids. For some reason, having the tape removed that keeps the IV in place is the worst agony in the world for a child. Ugh. And aside from knocking out the lovely child completely (please don't call social services on me), there is absolutely nothing you can do to make the experience any more pleasant. I'm not sure if it's worse for the kid that has the IV or for the nurse whose ear drums are shattered by the screams. Oh wait...let me think...Oh yeah, it's DEFINITELY much worse for the nurse. You'll have to excuse me if I ask you to repeat what you say a few more times than usual.

The best thing about pediatric nursing...I get to use one of my favorite medical words: INTUSSUSCEPTION. Yeah, it's NOT a fun ailment for a child to have and I don't wish it upon anyone. Nonetheless, I love saying the word...In-tuss-u-scep-tion...ooooooh, say it again. Sorry, I've always been an odd duck.