Here's the latest in my climb from mere Super Float ICU Nurse to one of Colorado's finest Flight Nurses. I spent thurs/friday at The Children's Hospital-Denver doing my pediatric rotation. I think it was back in 1998/1999 that I did my ped's rotation at the Shriner Hospital in western Mass, so I was a bit aprehensive going into this. If you have ever dropped off kiddos at the Children's Hospitals across the country- you know how wonderful they are. It comes down to kids needing a kids hospital. And the TCH-Denver is brand new(Sept 07). I oriented with our sister program called the Newborn/Young Child Team (NYC Team) and their specialty is premies to 3yrs old. They don't play with adults. And like Miss Marie, they would take preterm neonates from the smaller outlying hospitals and bring them to TCH to "feed and grow" which most of them need.
In my 24hrs with them, we only went on one call out of town to pick up a 37wk newborn with some questionable left facial droop, atrophic left arm(didn't move) and questionable seizure activity. My preceptor was a fountain of knowledge- I'm just bummed it took 8hrs to hear it from her(the call came in at 1430). The baby was really cute, had a good grasp of the left hand, but no active movement of the elbow/shoulder. She slept the entire way. Well, 70mins after we left the sending hospital we rolled into TCHs NICU where we turned her over to a very capable team. Tough job, and I'm going to have to learn that along with all the fancy adult stuff.
Monday brings 10hrs in the CICU/Cath Lab(yawn...!), and I'm hoping I can switch over to TCH for more pedi exposure- I'm very comfortable with the cardiac side of things, even the balloon pumps. But we'll see- I don't have the "big" picture. Stay tuned folks!