Pediatric RN... It's Inevitable

I've been on the Med/ Surge floor for 2 weeks now, and I've got 2 weeks to go until LPN year graduation. Last week, I worked with a 54 year old male, pretty much because he was the youngest patient on the floor. I'm not a huge fan of working with the elderly. They can be really sweet... or incredibly needy, and I just don't like signing myself up to deal with needy.

When picking my patients for Med/ Surge clinical rotations, I have a tendency of looking at the age first, then the reason for their hospital stay. You can imagine my excitement as I flipped through the patients to find a cute little 6 sitting in the age box. My name went next to that patient before I even bothered looking at the diagnosis.

I love working with kids! Yeah, they have mood swings, and yeah, they can be difficult to work with. Come on though, working with kids is so rewarding.. Stuff like getting my patient to swallow his medicine, and then spending 10 minutes talking about our siblings together to distract from the awful taste (It smelled horrendous, I can only imagine how it tasted) or walking in at 6:45 AM to take vitals and having the cutest little conversation with a half awake little boy ("My arm hurts" "Is there anything I can get to make it feel better?" "No, my bed will make it better") is just so much fun for me. Watching him start out his day saying his arms hurt too much to move, to raising them a few inches off the bed a few hours later, then full fledged punching my hands during my assessment at 11:15 made me feel like I was doing the right stuff to help him feel better.

Adults rarely show progression in such a small amount of time, but it's typical for kids. I love being able to see the change from hour to hour. I love letting kids listen to their own hearts and stomachs, watching their faces light up with wonder reminds me of the same fascinations I had the first time I heard my own heart. I like figuring out ways to calm them down, to reassure them that i'm not there to hurt them, and getting that smile out of them is the cherry on top.

I'm good with kids, I knew this already. So maybe pediatrics is really where I"m meant to be.
~Courtney