Friday, December 5, 2008

Pediatric Nursing

Is your fascination with kids keeps you thinking about making a career out of it? Since you have soft spots for children, you are left with several options to choose from when it comes to deciding on what profession to land on. You can be a teacher, a day-care provider, or even a baby-sitter! But because there’s a desperate need for nurses due to the predicted shortage, you my want to reconsider your options and become a pediatric nurse. In pediatric nursing, you are given a chance to work with different children of different ages as well as promoting their health and well being.

To become a pediatric nurse, your educational preparation will require you to take up pediatric nursing program in order for you to gain the skills and knowledge needed to perform your job properly, which is providing care for infants, children and adolescents. Also, you should learn how to comfort and treat patients, assist doctors, examine and refer patients, and instruct parents to do their share of caring and giving support for their children. Do you now have a clearer picture of how important the role of a pediatric nurse in children and parent’s lives?

There are many programs that allow you to focus on caring for children with special needs or you can concentrate on a certain age group like infants or teenagers. The choice is yours to make whatever you prefer. You can also take courses in child development, diagnosis and treatment, and physiology. Or, you may take courses about health promotion, parenting, and disease prevention. If you are interested in healthcare systems and management skills, there are also available courses for you to take up on those areas.

What’s great about pediatric nursing is that you can become a pediatric nurse in as early as two years by completing a two-year master’s degree program offered by some nursing schools. And most of these programs allow you to become a practitioner nurse after graduation, which means you can examine, diagnose, and treat your own patients, while others let you become a clinical nurse specialist. But, if you already have a master’s degree in nursing, all you need to do is complete a postmaster’s degree program leading to certificate in pediatric nursing. Isn’t that a fast way to realizing your dream of having a career that involves children?

Having a degree in pediatric nursing allows you to work in schools, hospitals, clinic, or any other healthcare institutions. Due to the fact that there is a significant shortage of nurses, you’re guaranteed to get a job in no time, provided you have the credentials needed to take the position. Isn’t your fascination with children the reason why you want a career that has something to do with them? Well, this is your big chance and the best part of it is that there are lots of things you can do more than just working with them, you can as well show and provide children what pediatric nurses are known for – care!

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