PALS

Working at a pediatric hospital is great.  I truly love the patients I work with and get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when I see patients from other parts of the hospital or I hear a really great "miracle" story from one of the other floors.  What terrifies me is PALS.

Before I started at my current job, I had BLS and ACLS certification (I did not know I would be working with kiddos at the time).  Well, that was two years ago and it's time for renewal and appropriate certification, a.k.a. PALS.

I've been involved in two codes in my nursing career.  Both during clinicals as a student.  One was an adult on the ICU unit, and they were not my patient, so I was asked to just stand back and observe as my fellow nursing student was fully participating.  The second was a pediatric patient who went into status asthmaticus shortly after we arrived on shift and I was given the job of writing down all the medications that were given to this patient.  Thankfully our patient survived, but my heart still aches for the parents that had to live through this episode.  Which brings me back to PALS.

Thankfully, if we keep our eyes open we can catch a pediatric patient tanking before they go into cardiac arrest.  I went in to do the hands on, skills portion of PALS today and was very nervous.  As a psych nurse, I do not deal with the same issues that a typical med/surg unit may deal with on a day to day basis.  However, I did surprise myself with what I still know and my ability to bring everything back to our basic training in nursing school, good ol' ABC's.  Although I know that I am a nurse, and have the education to prove that I am a nurse, I still need those reminders that regardless of what type of nurse you are, you have the information and skill, you may just need to brush off the dust a bit to find those skills.  Yes, psych nurses are trained to save lives too.