Blog

Starting a career as a pediatric nurse is very fulfilling and rewarding for those who love to work and nurse the children. Just like any other job, it has its own pros and cons but if you love nurturing and helping others, the pros will outweigh the cons.

Pros:

1. Work closely with children: You will be in a good position to work closely with the children and reassure them of the importance of medical tests if they seem afraid. You can care and offer support to the children you treat.

2. Rewarding: Being a pediatric nurse gives you the opportunity not only to treat the child but also to interact with the child’s parents.

3. Improve child’s health: It helps you in proving proper treatment to the children who are in pain. You can also give vaccinations and carry out normal checks on the children to ensure their health.

4. Bonding with the children: Interacting with children and taking care of them can lead to a great bonding experience and this makes the work easier and enjoyable for the nurse.

5. Present other opportunities: You can work outside of healthcare facilities like in schools, in insurance firms, or sometimes at law firms.

6. Interesting and diverse: Working as a pediatric nurse gives you the opportunity to interact with different types of patients and treat various diseases. This enables you to acquire a unique experience and make your career more exciting.

7. Flexibility: Nurses should be flexible and adapt to interacting with patients of different age groups.
You can choose to work full-time, part-time or on-call basis. If you love adventure, you can consider travel nursing jobs.

8. Trusted profession: It is a respected career and there are able to earn trust and respect bring a sense of pride to them.

9. Helping to save lives: Making a difference in the patient’s condition, you save their lives and this makes you happy to see the patients doing well.

10. Appreciated: There is great satisfaction when your patients acknowledge and express their gratitude for good care and attention.

Cons:

1. Resistant: The children may not cooperate in taking the medicine or even resist the treatment being administered to them.

2. Communication difficulties: Sometimes the child is too young to understand why there are in great pain and at times, you need to have great communication skills and creativity to deal with the children.

3. Overbearing parents: Sometimes dealing with excessively overbearing parents is very difficult and frustrating. The parents may direct their anger to you if they see their child is in pain even after you have administered the treatment.

4. Death: Watching the child in pain is very difficult for the nurses. Sometimes the nurses’ dealing with the life-death emergency situation and losing a child in such situations is heartbreaking and makes them think about what they could have done much better to save the child.

5. Neglectful parents: Sometimes as a nurse, you can deal with a neglectful parent who doesn’t care much about the child and there is little you can do to help the child outside the healthcare facility.

6. Emotional investment: Difficult to deal with the family of the sick child due to much emotions they feel for their sick child.

7. Stressful: Sometimes the job may be overwhelming especially in hospitals with fewer pediatric nurses and more patients.

8. Exposed to viruses: Working as a nurse you can be exposed to various viruses and pathogens through contact with blood or body fluids from various patients.

9. Work on shifts: You may find yourself working during weekends, holidays, and at night. Nurses work in shifts and not a 9-5 job like other jobs.

10. Physical work: Pediatricians do a lot of work moving and helping patients for long hours and may have back pains from lifting and pulling patients.