Career Goals: Why I Want To Be A Pediatric Nurse

Do you remember that thrilling feeling of “being good” at the doctor’s office and your nurse handing you the basket full of stickers to choose from when you were younger? Well I do, and that is part of the reason that I would like to become a pediatric nurse. The point of my paper is to define what pediatrics is all about, what my daily day of nursing would look like, why I would benefit from being a nurse, why my clients would benefit from me being a nurse, and how children typically react to doctors and nurses.

Pediatrics is the generalized practice of nursing dealing primarily with babies, toddlers, student-aged children, and adolescents. A student graduating with any degree ranging from a two-year associate’s to a doctoral degree of science and nursing, has the ability to work anywhere of their choosing. There are many different areas of hospitals and clinics that one could work, yet I chose the career of children. The job of working with children can be challenging, yet rewarding. I find working with kids to be enjoyable and a career I could see myself working for the rest of my life happily. This job is in high demand because so few people want to work in the health sciences with children. So this is a job that has the ability to pay well. However, working in a doctor’s office usually doesn’t pay as well as a large city hospital has the capability of. This job also has the ability of providing me life stability. What I mean by this is that most nurses have absurd hours working holidays, weekends, and night-shifts, but typically pediatric offices open around seven A.M. and close at a regular hours of five or six P.M which would allow me to not only be with a family more, but also give me more freedom from my job and would generally enable me to get more sleep.

While some may see this career as negative, this is a job of great cheerfulness. A typical day of a pediatric nurse would necessitate that I take all their vital signs, ask of signs and symptoms, and possibly have to give vaccinations. I may occasionally assist with routine lab tests, and manage health files. Typically a doctor’s office is a less hectic, more low key line of work that some may find dull or mundane, but I find this line of work fun and something that I really have always wanted to do with my life.

Which leads me to my third point of why this career would benefit me as the nurse. With me working in a line of work that I am fond of my mental state would be much better off than if I were to work somewhere I downright don’t want to be. Most importantly though, nursing is always going to be needed. Every day someone gets sick and doctors and nurses will always need to be around. Last but not least children are the focus of my job, if I am reflecting how much I enjoy where i’m at my patients and parental units I will come in contact with are going to sense my happiness and hopefully be able to calm a possibly stressful situation.

Going to the doctor for some parents entails them lying about where they’re going to their kids, then dragging them in screaming and crying. This is due to White Coat Syndrome, where the person’s blood pressure rises just by being around the presence of doctors. In one study of the child’s brain they found that the most common reason kids are scared of doctors is the thought of getting shots, the other leading causes are the strep test, doctors touching them, being left alone by themselves, and some older children even feared being killed or dying. It would be my duty to make sure that my patients see me as a kind, gentle person to take the fear away and make them as comfortable as possible, and hopefully get them to feel better quickly. Being a friendly nurse would also make it easier for the parents to relax and hopefully relieve the stress of the possibility of dealing with a rude unpleasant nurse.

My overall view of pediatric nursing is positive and something in my future, I find myself being excited about  and that's why i want to be a pediatric nurs . While I work toward my CNA certification now, hopefully one day in the future a child will look at me and realize they want to grow up and be a nurse just like me in the way I watched nurses throughout my life and knew that one day I would be that person writing down vitals and making other people’s day better one sticker at a time.