The Pediatric Profession Paper

Pediatric emergency care has always been something I try to avoid as It scares me. But the only way to overcome fear is to face it. So, I have asked my charge nurse to give me all the pediatric patients. My preceptor has taught me how to hold a pediatric patient to take vitals accurately or how to hold them, so they won’t move during an injection. I hope to soon try to insert an IV in a patient but that scares me the most even though its relatively simple. I think that being able to handle pediatric patients well would improve my skills as a nurse therefore reduce my pediatric fear and increase my job opportunity. As we continued with the preceptorship, we went over how the lack of dedicated pediatric nurses really affects facilities. There is only a handful of full pediatric trained nurses in this emergency room and it’s easy to say that most of the regular adult nurses get scared when they received a pediatric patient. Luckily the Pediatric nurses are very helpful and willing to come help if the patient is very critical or if the nurse has never done it before. Many procedures are very similar between adults and pediatric patients but kids move a lot more and some don’t understand what you’re telling them Journal week 3 Ethical consideration in pediatric patients are just as important as in adults. These little humans are vulnerable and don’t understand most things. Sometimes they’re freaking out and so is the parents. It’s crucial to explain to both the parents and the pediatric patient what’s going on, if they understand what you’re going to do and what it’ll feel like. I’ve learned that around the ages of 4-5 they can start to decided what they want to do first, so I give them the option to choose if they want blood first or swabs or provide a urine sample first and most times this helps calms the nerves as they feel more in control. It’s also important to have the parents in the same page as you so they can help you, that can be achieved by educating them on the reason why need each test and what it will tell us. Journal week 4. In many cultures many things vary from acceptable and normal to completely rude and shocking. As nurses it’s very important to realize what culture you’re dealing with. Growing up Hispanic I’m used to always seeing a lot of family visiting patients and being supportive. But in many other cultures they don’t have anyone visit them in the hospital because that is such a personal moment. Another example is I’m used to tapping patients on their shoulder, hand or feet as reassurance and many cultures don’t like to be touched nor even made eye contact with, so it’s extremely important to know what culture you’re dealing with and always ask if it’s okay before you touch or do anything. Journal Week 6 Many times, it’s easier to put a patient in a diaper and change them after they go than to take the time to walk them to the bathroom. But it does so much more for patients if you walk them, not only does it provide more dignity it allows them to ambulate a little. Another way to keep the dignity is when doing an EKG on a patient, instead of fully exposing them you can place a blanket over their breast and cover them up as you place a lead. Always ask before you do an EKG and explain where you’d be touching. It’s always important to let the patient know what you’ll be doing because you don’t know if they’ve had previous traumas and honestly nobody likes to be touched by a stranger.