Pediatric nurses usually provide medical care for children and adolescents alongside doctors. Taking a patient’s medical history, checking vital signs, giving medication, administering intravenous lines, health promotion, outcome evaluation, and keeping patient records are all examples of pediatric nursing work. A college degree and certification are usually required if you want to work as a pediatric nurse.
If you want to work as a pediatric nurse, get an associate’s degree in nursing from a two-year college or a bachelor’s degree in nursing from a four-year college and become a registered nurse (RN). Microbiology, human development, pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology will all be part of the nursing curriculum. Required practicum experiences will also be included, where you will be supervised licensed nurses while working with patients. Your nursing work will no longer be limited to children and adolescents. Rather, you will gain nursing experience with patients of all ages as a result of your nursing education.
After that, you must pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) and apply for nursing licensure in the area where you want to work. The NCLEX exam is used to evaluate your nursing abilities. It’s a multiple-choice exam that covers topics like health promotion, patient care, risk management, psychosocial integrity, and pharmacological principles.
Find a nursing job where you can work with children and adolescents to gain pediatric nursing experience. If you want to work as a pediatric nurse, you can enroll in a hospital training program. Some hospitals, for example, provide three-month pediatric nursing training programs for nurses who have recently completed nursing school.
If you want to work as a pediatric nurse, you should get certified. Passing the Certified Pediatric Nurse (CPN) exam as a pediatric nurse could lead to certification. Certification as a pediatric nurse will allow you to earn a higher salary and expand your career options.
Take classes in pediatric nursing if you want to work as a pediatric nurse. Take, for example, the American Heart Association’s Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) program (AHA). You could also enroll in the Emergency Nurses Association’s Emergency Nurse Pediatric Course (ENPC) (ENA).
You could also join the Society of Pediatric Nurses (SPN) and take any of the SPN’s pediatric nursing courses. Taking these courses will allow you to gain valuable knowledge that will help you become a better nurse. Additionally, these courses will keep you up to date on the most recent information in the field of pediatric nursing.
Hospitals, private practice, clinics, and community health centers are all places where pediatric nurses can work. If you decide to continue working as a nurse, you may be promoted to nurse supervisor. You could go to graduate school and earn a Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in nursing, which would allow you to teach college nursing courses, if you wanted to pursue a nursing-related academic career.
On the other hand, if you desired a different career path, you could do so. For example, as a pediatric nurse, you could work for a pharmaceutical company as a medical writer. You could also work for a medical staffing firm as a nurse recruiter.