What's up guys and welcome back to The Nurse Nook. As you can tell by the title, we are going to be talking about pediatric nursing in this video. If you guys are new to the channel, don't forget to subscribe and click the bell down below so you guys can get notified every time I post a new video.
My channel is all about nursing, lifestyle, self-help, tips on success, and just living a positive nursing lifestyle. So just a little bit of background about me. I am currently a pediatric registered nurse.
I've been a pediatric nurse for over a year. pediatric nurse for over a year and a half now before that I was a just general adult and peds I guess you can say ER nurse so I have almost three years in total of nursing experience so I wanted to make this video for anyone that was kind of considering pediatric nursing or just wanted to learn more about it just what it is and some tips for success. So let me start by saying that pediatric nursing is a completely different world from adult nursing. I almost had to completely relearn how to be a nurse when I came to pediatrics. One of the biggest things that took me by surprise, which I kind of should have known before starting pediatrics, is almost everything is a two-person job.
At least two-person, sometimes three or four depending on how big and feisty the kid is. So when I was an adult nurse, I could literally just, you know, start an IV, boom, boom, boom, done. get all my work done.
In peds, it's not so simple all the time. If it's a younger kid, an infant or toddler, they don't like needles, they don't want to sit still for you and so they're gonna cry, swing, fight back, spit, bite, vomit, I've had it all. And so in pediatric we use what we call holders which are people that literally help hold the child while we do our procedures.
And so things tend to take a lot longer in pediatrics just because you can't do a lot of things by yourself because you need a second or third person to help you complete a lot of tasks. Because almost none of the time will kids literally sit still and let you do what they what you need to do to them. And if they do sit still and let you do what they need to do for them a lot of times it's because they're so sick and don't even have the energy to fight back.
And sometimes we do like when kids fight back especially if we're worried about them. if we think they're really sick, if they have the energy to fight back, at least we know they still have some reserve and they still have some energy left and some liveliness. So now that we're on the topic of procedures, I'm kind of going to go into a little bit of what it's like to do procedures on kids and just some helpful tips on how to get things done quickly, efficiently, and so you don't traumatize the poor baby.
But like I said earlier, it's a total process on doing procedures on kids, but there are definitely ways to make things go a lot smoother, less traumatized. and a lot quicker for the kids. So one of the techniques I like to use whenever I need to start an IV, do a catheter or even do something like taking vitals.
And let me tell you, vitals can be your biggest enemy. Have you ever tried to take a blood pressure on a toddler? That is one of the hardest things to do and probably one of the most frustrating situations that you can encounter as a pediatric nurse trying to get an accurate blood pressure on a toddler.
I because nobody ever wants to sit still for you. They feel something like hugging their arm or leg and they immediately want to pull it off and they're fighting and screaming and crying. And it's always like 180 over 97. And it's never accurate because the patient is angry and kicking and it's a total process. So I'm going to share with you guys some of the tips that I use to try to make this a little bit smoother.
One of the things I like to do is distraction. And in this part parents can play a huge huge role in helping you and making things go a lot smoother especially when it comes to distraction so kids are not gonna like you most of the time whenever you are doing something to them that can be painful or scary and so the other person in the room is normally a parent or a family member and so they're already a lot more comfortable with that family member and so that is like their safe zone whenever you come in to do a procedure they immediately want to go to that parent because they know that's safe and they know they're not going to be harmed with their parent so what i like to do when we start ivs especially because that's one of the most common things we do in pediatrics um in the er especially so i kind of like to ask the parent is there like a favorite show or song that they have And a lot of times the parents will pull up like YouTube. Baby Shark is like a huge hit in the ER with the kids. They'll pull up like a little video or a show. And they'll have the baby or the kid watching the show while we're working over here.
So if we're working on this arm, I like to have the kid facing the parent on this side. And have the phone. Kind of over here so that the kid is not looking or also what I like to do sometimes is have the phone kind of blocking what we're doing. A lot of times if they don't really see what's going on or see the needle, they are a little bit more calm and not as feisty and moving around.
So this kind of brings me into my next point. When you are doing procedures on kids, I never like to lie to them. And I think that this is something that should be practiced widespread. Never tell a kid that, oh, this isn't going to hurt if you're starting an IV or going to do something that could potentially be painful. Because when you do something like that and they're anticipating that it's not going to be a painful procedure, you start losing their trust.
And now every time a health care provider comes in the room, they're going to go ballistic and scream because now they lost that trust with you. And so they don't know what you're coming in there to do that you can possibly be hurting them. So what we like to call IV sticks and P's is just the.
a poke. I never like to say, oh, I'm going to give you a shot because they hear a shot and it's like, heck no. They immediately want to like get up out of there. They know what shots are.
They get them in the doctor's office. They're like, nope. When you call it a poke, it sounds a little bit more friendly, not as scary as getting shot. So I like to say it's going to feel like a little poke or a little, a little bug bite or something like that. I never like to say, you know, you're going to get shot in your arm because that automatically puts them on edge and now they're on guard and now they're scared and crying.
it's not going to be a great situation. So never lie. Just be honest about what you're doing and about what they should expect to feel. My next point when it comes to assessing kids is to get down to their level.
And so what I mean by that is don't use terms that the kids are not familiar with. Like I'm going to assess your abdomen or I'm going to check your cap refill. Use like friendly terms like, oh, I'm going to push on your belly.
Like i'm gonna check what you ate for lunch today or something something of that sort something that's friendly something that kind of creates more of a rapport with the kids because the more trust that you build the more they'll let you do the more you can assess them the more they'll they'll take their medications easier so if you use friendly terms with them they tend to be a lot more open with you and tend to be willing to do a lot more for you Also when it comes to either assessing or doing things like taking blood pressures or giving meds I like to include the kids in the care. So give them an option It's important to create clear boundaries and let them know that hey this has to get done no matter what but I can give You a choice some choices you can allow them to make is like which arm or leg do you want to do the blood pressure? on or Do you want me to give you the medicine or do you want mom to give you the medicine?
So small choices help them feel like they have a little bit of autonomy, I guess you can say, a little bit of a choice and they don't feel like they're being forced or demanded to do certain things. Also let them kind of participate in assessments. So sometimes I'll let kids like hold a stethoscope to their lungs or to their heart.
lot of times you know you can say like if you want to listen to mom's heartbeat let the kids like use your stethoscope or play with it or touch it of course a clean one just so they're not scared of the equipment if you let them kind of just analyze it or take a peek at it you know they know it's not scary it's it's a cool instrument that they can use to hear So eliminating fear is a huge hurdle that you'd have in pediatric nursing. And once you get over that hump, it'll allow everything to go a lot smoother. A huge part of pediatric nursing that people don't always think about is the parents.
The parents are like probably like 50% of pediatric nursing. Now parents can either be your best friend or your biggest hurdle. And it differs from family to family. I actually really appreciate that my patients, almost all of them have parent or family member in the room because if I can't be in the room at least I know that there's someone in there that can notice if something goes wrong with the patient that can come out and tell me versus in adults if you only have one patient in the room with no family members you have just an adult if something happens to that adult or something is not looking right and I don't catch it immediately I won't know until I go back in the room Whereas with kids, I always have someone else in the room that can come out and tell me, hey, like he's not looking so good or or this is weird or or something was was going wrong in there.
And so I know to go in there immediately. And also parents can be a huge help with like giving medications. Like I said earlier with the distraction techniques.
And also parents just know their kids. So one of the biggest things is especially depending on the age. Again, this is one thing about pediatrics is there is such a developmental difference. You can have any age between.
My youngest patient in pediatrics was maybe a couple days old. Like had just left the hospital from mom giving birth. Up into 18. And even in there. their 20s depending on what disease process a lot of cardiology kids are followed throughout their lives at pediatric hospitals so anyways back to what i was saying if a kid is younger an infant or a toddler or someone that can't communicate well the parent has a really really good way of being able to tell when their kid It's just not looking right. You know, they know their kids better than we do as healthcare providers.
So they'll be able to tell me like, hey, this, this is not the normal, this is, this is looking wrong for them. This is not how they usually are. They usually do this. And for that reason, I really love having parents there.
Sometimes parents can be a little bit of an obstacle because again, this is their kid, so they know what's best for them. And sometimes that can be a little bit of a butting head situation when it comes to being a healthcare provider. Everyone thinks that no one can take care of their kid as good as they can, which I'm sure that I think the same when I have babies too, that nobody can take care of my baby as well as I can. But also you have to remember that. this is a very scary time in a lot of parents'lives.
You know, their kid is in the ER. It's very scary. There's a lot of questions. There's a lot of unknowns. So a lot of parents can be very nervous and just anxious about what to anticipate, what's going on.
They want to know. And so as long as you just remember, I can kind of put yourself in that parent's shoes. Like if this was my kid, I would probably feel the same way. Or if this was my kid, like whatever it is.
So try not to judge the parents on how they're acting or how they're presenting or the questions they have or the neediness or whatever it is, because you never know what they're experiencing. You never know what their life is like at home. A lot of parents bring a child in and you know, they want, they want to leave the ER and they're like, okay, how long is this going to take?
And to you, it just seems like, oh my gosh, this family is rushing me, but they could have like five other kids at home that you don't know about. And They need to get back. They need to feed the family. They need to pick the kids up from practice or whatever it is. So you never know what's going on with families.
And so I just like to be very understanding and not judgmental and just try to explain things as much as I can. And that's something that is super, super huge. Just communication is half the battle. Even if things are taking a long time, as long as you explain to the family what's next.
And that goes from When you're assessing a patient, explain to the parent what you're doing, what's going to be next. And that comes with like test imaging labs. Hey, we're getting labs.
It should take this amount of time to get back. And then once we get those, then this is the next step. So communication is a huge part of it. And especially in pediatric nursing, because I feel like the anxiety tends to be a little higher because kids are, you know, they're kids.
And these are sometimes first time parents. And they are worried about their kids and they just want to know that they'll be okay. And so by you kind of just breaking things down and expressing things to them and kind of in terms that they understand. usually makes things go a lot smoother. Now when it comes to pediatric nurse must-haves, which this is the exciting part for me.
I like all like the little gidgets and gadgets that we use. I'm just going to share with you guys a couple of things that I think are life-changing to have as a pediatric nurse while you're working and it just makes your life a lot easier. And so what I love about pediatric nursing is the smallest things can really make kids happy and make a huge difference. So for example, I have my stethoscope.
And on my stethoscope, I just have, I used to have a little cow, but I don't know what happened to her. She used to make scary noises. But I just have like a little smiley face on here. And just something as simple as having a smiley face, you already appear, if you're wearing a stethoscope around your neck, and the kids see that you have like a little smiley face on your stethoscope, you already appear a lot more friendly, not only to the kid, but to the family. It kind of relaxes the kid a little bit.
and makes them feel like, oh, like this person is fun. They're friendly. They have like little cows and stickers on them. Speaking of stickers, this is one of those things where if your department doesn't supply stuff like that, that it's a very, very small investment that you can get at literally the dollar store, but will make a huge difference.
So stickers and bubbles are life changing in the pediatric ER and just in Peds in general. especially bubbles. Bubbles are huge in distracting kids, especially when we're taking like blood pressures or doing IVs.
Bubbles are life-changing. It has like some kind of like hypnotic effect on kids that whenever they see bubbles, it's like all the other like worries of the world just melt away. It doesn't work on all kids, but definitely babies and like very young toddlers, bubbles are like... Life-changing seriously and also stickers I use stickers as rewards so whenever we do IV I'll say okay so we're gonna do a little poke and if we do well after the poke we can get stickers and so I'll use that as a reward so that way when I come in again to give meds or something the kid knows that you know like if you do good you can get rewarded.
take your meds you can possibly get a sticker and one of the other must-have items that i would recommend every pediatric nurse having is some kind of textbook clinical companion or just book about pediatric nursing i don't have like one in specific that i'm like this is my must-have like you must read it i feel like a lot of these textbooks say the same thing honestly just in different terms but i do know burns has a pediatric textbook as well as wong's are pretty good. I have the ENPC book because I'm in the ER so it's focused on emergency pediatric nursing but there are tons and tons of books out there and it is super beneficial and I highly recommend getting a book even just to use in your free time while you're at work if you have some downtime because kids are so different and so specialized and their anatomy sometimes can be different than adults. and there's a lot more illnesses that can happen to them that is not really seen in adults. It's huge that you kind of study that and are well versed in that and know what to look for and how to treat it and just that whole other animal that pediatric nursing is. If you guys want I can kind of do a video on some of like disease processes that I see frequently in kids like RSV, appendicitis things like that if you guys want to see that leave some comments down below if you'd be interested in watching those videos um but that is the end of my video i can talk for hours about pediatric nursing but those are just some of the points that i wanted to hit on for you guys thank you guys so much for watching and we'll see in the next video