Being in a childrens unit is a lot different to being in an adult inpatient medical

unit. With children, it means delivering care through a family centred lens, a
concept that is still quite new to me. I expect so much from the pediatric ward to
the point that i think i might not handle it but I did. Thankfully, my patient is a
fun and carefree child so we don't have any worries handling him. At first, I was a
bit hesistant and it was hard for me to approach a pediatric patient maybe because
i am used to handling adult patients. But I think this clinical duty of mine was
the first most heartwarming because my patient recognize me as his nurse and he
offer me toys to play with him. Flashback from the first day of my clinical duty,
we were being grouped to by two's in one patient. We take some vital signs every
four hours, we interview the mother for the patients health history and interact.
The same routine also happened in the next day of clinical duty. As students within
the nursing curriculum we are taught the importance of developing a trusting
relationship with our patients. However, in a pediatric setting, nurses and other
healthcare professionals have an additional responsibility to develop a
relationship with the patients’ family. My initial few days in the pediatric ward
have enabled me to realize that confidence plays a vital role in not only providing
optimal patient and family centred care, but also in the development of my role as
a student nurse. While I realize, my confidence has been on the lower end these
past couple weeks, I realize that these feelings will subside as I continue to grow
my knowledge and develop my own routines into how I develop a care plans that meets
both the needs of my patient and their respective families. Thankfully, at the end
of our second day clinical duty, as we might not be able to see our patient in the
next week, we were able to establish rapport to the patient who is now fond with us
and the mother who is smiling while we were bonding with patient.