When it comes to choosing where you want to go with your nursing career, there are several different jobs and specialties out there to choose from. If you want to use your nursing career in order to help children in your local area and further afield, the good news is that there are many options that you might want to consider to reach this career goal. We’ve listed some of the best nursing job titles that are the perfect choice for anybody who wants a rewarding career with children.

#1. Registered Pediatric Nurse

A pediatric RN will generally work with children at hospitals or doctor’s offices. They provide routine checkups to children of all ages, and many will work in children’s hospitals or on children’s wards. As a pediatric RN, your job will include a number of tasks, such as providing developmental screening and immunizations, routine checkups, and treating common childhood illnesses such as chicken pox. You may also be required to work caring for children who are more seriously ill or injured. You’ll also need to work closely with parents and families and have excellent communication skills to help families get through difficult times.

#2. Labor and Delivery Nurse

Labor and delivery nurses work with OB/GYNs to help bring new life into the world on a daily basis. Both Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) and Registered Nurses (RNs) can go on to study to become a Labor and Delivery Nurse. You may be able to complete an additional study program once you have gained your online nursing degree, or get training on the job. Your tasks will include monitoring vital signs for mothers and babies, checking for and being aware of potential complications to inform the doctor when necessary, assisting new mothers with breastfeeding and other tasks, and adapting to a very fast-paced environment.

#3. School Nurse

If you want to work with children but would rather work with older kids, then a school nurse could be the perfect job for you. School nurses are there to make sure that children are safe and happy whilst attending school, and provide basic care to them on a day to day basis. As a school nurse, you may be asked to help with administering prescription medications to children, dealing with wounds and injuries that occur whilst in school, making sure that health requirements are met, give immunizations, and lead health education programs. As a school nurse, you will also be very active in safeguarding children and ensuring that their home life is safe.

#4. Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Nurse

As a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) nurse, you will generally be dealing with children who are suffering from life-threatening injuries or illnesses. You will be expected to monitor the vital signs of critically ill children and work with doctors, healthcare providers and patients to aid a child’s recovery. PICU nurses will first be required to be an RN and it may help to have a master of science in nursing for some hospitals.

Are you considering any of these nursing careers? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

BHG7M1 Boy being given medicine

There are millions of children, both in the United States and around the world, who are alive today thanks to some of the recent advances we have made in the provision of children’s health care. As time goes on, we gain a deeper understanding of how to diagnose, treat, and prevent a number of serious conditions, which previously would have proven to be fatal in many cases.

Although we take many of these discoveries for granted in our modern world, they are actually the result of many years of hard work from a number of gifted individuals and should be celebrated as such. In this article, we take a look at just some of the major advances in children’s healthcare that have transformed the industry in recent times.

Vaccines

Vaccines are arguably the most significant healthcare innovation of the last century. Both adults and children have benefited from the introduction of vaccines, but they have proven to have made a great difference to infant mortality rates across the world. There is still a drive amongst public health officials to continue to increase the uptake rate of vaccinations amongst parents.

Reducing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has for a long time been one of the major challenges facing the healthcare industry. SIDS, sometimes known as crib death, still has no clearly defined cause. It involves children aged one or younger falling asleep and then not waking up. In 1993, there were 4,700 cases of SIDS and researchers were struggling to establish a cause. They soon discovered that when children slept on their fronts rather than their backs, they were far more likely to be affected by the condition. As a result of the ensuing public awareness campaign encouraging parents to put their babies to sleep on their backs, rates of SIDS have dropped dramatically.

Childhood Cancers

The most common childhood cancer affects the bone marrow and blood – it is called acute lymphocytic leukemia and, until relatively recently, it was an automatic death sentence. Fortunately, we have since made significant advances in the way that we diagnose and treat this type of cancer. We are now able to spot it earlier and treat it more aggressively. As a result, patients have a much better chance of surviving and recovering. Whereas in 1975, as many as three-quarters of those who were diagnosed with the disease would ultimately die because of it, today the survival rate is over 90%.

Side Effects Reporting

Prior to the advent of the internet and instantaneous communications, the process of reporting any side effects experienced while using medicines was a lengthy one that relied on the submission of physical documents. Now, however, there are systems in place to make reporting side effects easy; there is also a much greater awareness of what side effects exist, how to spot them, and the most appropriate way of reacting to them. Websites such as Side Effect Answers have made this information freely and widely available.

Childhood healthcare has progressed at a great speed in recent years and, fortunately, innovations in the field are continuing to improve the lives of children across the globe.

How to Effectively Raise Awareness for a Cause

Whether it is the fight against cyberbullying or a new movement to help victims of abuse get the help they need, one of the first – and perhaps the most important – steps to take is raising awareness. All stakeholders must be aware of the social movement or the cause for it to be effective. This means reaching out to victims, loved ones, community members, and agents of change in an effective way.

Thanks to social media and the internet in general, it is much easier to raise awareness for a cause. The same instruments can be used to target specific communities or a particular area too. You just have to know the steps to take in order to effectively raise awareness for a cause.

Focus on Continuity

Make continuity a focus from the beginning. Unlike advertising, raising awareness for a cause means building up support. Raising awareness is never a one-time thing; it is actually a continuous effort that will become in momentum as you invest more time, money, and energy into it.

Continuity is also important for amplifying that awareness. In the beginning, you will be spending most of your time reaching out to key opinion leaders and influencers in the community. As the campaign progresses, you can shift your energy towards working with a wider audience and maintaining traction.

Don’t forget to build a community around the cause too. Community building is an effective way to maintain the generated momentum by gaining the support of like-minded and engaged members. The rest of the movement will be easier from this point.

Use Valuable and Educational Content

There is a reason why even top law firms use LawBiz and their law firm newsletter as a way to connect with the communities around them. Law is a complicated industry and delivering educational content through newsletters allow law firms to engage their stakeholders in a more effective way.

The same approach can be adopted in the case of raising awareness for a cause. Instead of promoting the movement itself, try to share more educational content about the cause. In the case of cyberbullying, for instance, a series of newsletters about dealing with cyberbullying or identifying cases of bullying on the internet will be very valuable to the readers.

Get the Audience Involved

Not every audience can come to the events and gatherings for the cause, but that doesn’t mean they can’t get involved altogether. Share contents from the offline gatherings and other activities conducted for the cause in order to get a wider audience invested in the movement.

There are challenges to overcome when using this strategy. For starters, you have to get the permission of everyone involved before you can safely share sensitive materials online. You also need to produce high quality photos and videos for them to be attractive and compelling.

Overcome the challenges, however, and you have a very powerful awareness-raising tool at your disposal. Soon, you will experience the snowball effect and your cause will gain a lot of traction at an incredible speed. Once you have reached that point, you will have the ability to do so much more and help more people around you.