How To Be A Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-A Complete Career Guide

Are you pursuing a nursing degree or looking to join it? Whatever the case may be, but Young kids,  babies, and toddlers appeal to you and you feel awe when you see them sick. A mother Teresa\’s soul inside you feels desperate to help them. These all symptoms indicate you are in severe desire of becoming a pediatric nurse. If this is the case, you are in the right place.

Who is a Pediatric Nurse practitioner?

A pediatric nurse is a registered nurse (RN) or practitioner nurse (NP) who has a specialization in pediatrics. A specialized pediatric nurse is an expert on the illnesses and diseases of young children, toddlers, and babies. She helps them fight sicknesses and enjoy their childhood.

Pediatric Nurse Jobs

A pediatric nurse mostly works at hospitals, daycares, and care centers, where children and babies are directly or indirectly contacted for health care. She works with children to fight with illnesses, maintain their medical histories, assess their physical and mental health, provide first aid, and coordinates with the doctors.

If qualified, she also prescribes medication and administers diagnostic tests to the children. She also has managerial and administrative roles to supervise and monitor other health workers. Her responsibilities also vary with her qualification. Because some pediatric nurses are specialized as an RN and some as NP. As an academician, she also performs researches that play an important role in discovering the treatments.   

Steps to Become a Pediatric Nurse

The following steps are mandatory to join the path of a pediatric nurse program or to become a pediatric nursing practitioner.  

Step 1 – Brainstorming  

Your path of becoming a pediatric nurse begins as you pass the 12 year education. Because there you have to take the first step in the direction of your desire. Thereby, on this step, you need to understand the jobs and responsibilities of a pediatric nurse or at least a nurse. Here you also need to consider the career outlook, your aptitude, your resources, and the income prospects of a pediatric nurse. After having mental satisfaction just take a deep breath and enrolls yourself for a degree or diploma of RN.

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Step 2 –Becoming an RN

To become an RN you can take two paths. Either you can take admission to a BSN degree or have an associate diploma in nursing. BSN degree takes four years to complete. On the other hand associate degree or diploma takes 2 to 3 years.     

To target pediatrics, during the BSN or students can choose subjects that help them specialize in pediatrics. These subjects provide them a substantial knowledge of child psychology, mental development, the vulnerability of the child body, and major health issues. These subjects also train them in dealing with the children. Because the way they react to medication, the way they have communication barriers, the way they behave in illness is far different from the adults.     

After having BSN, Some students opt for enrolling in a master\’s degree and become an NP or nursing practitioner. These students have the opportunity of becoming a specialized pediatric nursing practitioner (PNP). On the other hand, some students opt for pediatric nursing certification and license exams.

Step 3 – NCLEX Exam

After having an accredited degree in pediatric nursing, a license is required to practice as a pediatric nurse. For this purpose, students are required to take the National Council Licensure Exam (NCLEX). For this purpose, an aspirant has to first apply for the license of the State Nursing Board. Most State Nursing Boards have almost similar requirements but some vary. For details aspirants can check:

After obtaining the license an aspirant can sign up for the NCREX exam. This exam is a standardized test, which ensures pediatric nurse is ready to practice.

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Career Outlook

With the high demand for health care workers due to increasing attention towards preventive health care and child care, a pediatric nurse is also in high demand. A pediatric nursing practitioner is also considered one of the most demanding NPs. Other estimates suggest the field of NP is the fifth most promising job overall and fourth-most promising in the health care industry.       

Conclusion

Pediatric nursing is a very promising field. Only interested persons are required to give proper attention to the skill of child care. To handle problems and issues are much more complex and diverse. Their problems are not as a miner as they are. They require proper attention and high skill. A pediatric nurse has to look for multiple aspects while diagnosing the illness of a child. They have also to give special care to the medication of children.

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All these complications require high skills to deal with. Moreover, communicating with children is not easy. Because they may not voice their problems as effectively and clearly as an adult can do. A pediatric nurse must adopt a certain aptitude to perform her duties. Hopefully, we are successful in providing a pediatric nurse career guide. We wish you the best of luck with your future.