In previous emails I have vented about my dislike for pediatrics but I have discovered that it's not pediatrics that I dislike but ward nursing in general. Last week I was suckered into working another pediatric shift, I figured that I would give it another try and see if I just had a bad shift last time. Apparently they were desperate and successfully guilted me into working. I was told that it was the hospitals "infant" ward so despite my initial hesitation agreed to work the shift.
When I got to the ward it was chaotic and all of the nurses were very apologetic....I later found out why! I began the shift asking multiple questions asking about the night shift routines, patient load, and breaks (one of the most important things). I was given my patient load (5 infants) which was an abnormally high number for the ward because someone called in sick. The shift started and I was lucky that 4/5 of the patients had a family member sleeping over. The shift flew by with multiple issues....one of the babies was having continuous seizures and bradycardias which required vital signs every 5 minutes. The ward coordinator was finally able to find another nurse to provide constant monitoring to the infant at 4AM so I could go on a quick break....thank goodness for that!
Some things that I dislike about ward nursing is that there is no time to pay attention to details like in the intensive care. I didn't have the luxury of completing a full head to toe assessment every 3-4 hours and had to settle for a pulse rate, respiratory rate, and temperature when the patient woke up. I also had many medications to give and needed to find another nurse to check the medication, sometimes reconstitute it, and check armbands. I was really missing the lovely pharmacy team back home, I felt like I was either drawing up medications or checking them the entire shift. There was one patient who was alone, a 14 month old battling gastroenteritis who slept well overnight and bottle fed every two hours to maintain hydration. Her room was disasterous when I came on shift, empty bottles everyone, sticky floor, dirty linens, no supplies, and in dirty clothes. I could have spent my whole shift or at least a very big portion of it organizing/cleaning. Unfortunately, that couldn't have been my priority but when 7AM rolled around I was tempted to stay later to do the "little things" that I had been wanting to do all night. I had my big realization that it wasn't the pediatric aspect of nursing that I dislike but it was the fact that I couldn't do all of the "little things" that I have always done for my patients and their families.
I feel very fortunate that I have had some diversity in my career, every shift either reinforces my love for neonates or teaches me something new. I think that my change of heart had a lot to do with the 14 month old patient, when she woke up in the morning she was so happy to see that someone was there and her big brown eyes lit up with excitement.... Her smile made all of my previous negative feelings towards pediatrics disappear.
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