Paper Sample on Becoming a NICU Nurse: Dedicated Specialists Caring for Ailing and Premature Babies

It requires an exceptional person to turn out to be a nurse, but that is even more exceptional for the individuals who grow into becoming a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Nurse. These highly dedicated specialists are tasked with the upkeep of the ailing and premature new-born babies who requires critical monitory and care until they are fully developed, mature, and have a dependable system. They handle medical ailments such as infections, cardiac malformation, congenital disabilities, and other morphological problems in new-borns. These professionals diligently take care of this group of important but delicate humans for an extended period of time until they are hopefully well and established to be raised by their parents. The paper provides a detailed description of the outlook and history of NICU nursing, the requirements one needs to become a NICU nurse, the job description of the nurse, and a reflection of the challenges and the benefits of a NICU nurse in the community.

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The NICU nurse has been relevant in the United States of America since 1960 now six decades down the line due to the rise the modern neonatology. The very first new-born intensive care unit was opened up at Yale-New Haven Hospital in October 1960. Hospitals began thinking of the development of special facilities to take care of premature babies in the 1920s when the mortality rate of the infants was recognized as a major public health issue. The plan for the care of the premature infants started in the 1950s when several preterm babies survived due to the developments in technology such as incubators (Jorgensen & Anne, p9). It was during the time that the government of the USA gave out financial aid to help in the training of the nurses and physicians to take care of babies. The 1960s saw the formation of the Nurse Practitioner Movement (NPM). Consequently leading to the commencement of the Paediatric Nurse Practitioner certificate program, which took four months to complete in 1965 at the University of Colorado. The government of the USA expanded its grants in the late 1960s and 70s to further the caretakers of premature babies’ education due to the identification of the high level of technical know-how and skills that this group of practitioners required. In the 1970s, nurses were gradually expanding their roles in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. In 1794 the NNP was advanced to postgraduate nurses with neonatology training offering care to premature infants and offering maternal counselling. Educational certification of NICU nurse was developed in 1983, examinations developed and given by NCC. The NNP programs were recognized at higher levels because of their importance and therefore leading to approval of graduate nursing in NICU in 2000. The healthcare reforms and practice of NICU nurse have advanced and gained legislative autonomy through the 21st century up to date. The growth rate of the NICU nurse market is projected at 6.7% by 2027, with increasing quality of service from the practitioners.

To qualify for a neonatal nurse, one must have a four year Bachelor of Science in nursing degree and be a registered nurse. The individual should also be certified by an exam from Neonatal Intensive Care Nursing and must have completed two years in the hospital setting, carrying out clinical duties. The major degree needed to enroll in college for NICU nurse is an Associate Degree in Nursing (Staebler, Suzanne & Robin, p334). There are several local colleges offering associate's degree in nursing in the USA. These include Westchester Community College, Valencia College, Mt. San Antonio College, and Sullivan County Community College, among others. For one to get to a NICU job, they need to have a four-year university majoring in nursing, work as a NICU nurse or Clinician, get a certification from ANCC and finally earn a graduate degree. It takes roughly six years, depending on how one goes about it to be rise to a NICU nurse position. Some of the jobs related to NICU nurse are Lactation Specialist; a practitioner specialized in breastfeeding supports parents and NICU specialists. Nursing Assistant; a technician responsible for supplying baby’s bedside and unit required supplies; and a Respiratory therapist; a therapist who specializes in lung airways treatment. The skills one needs to be a successful NICU nurse specialist are; a proper understanding of the psychological and physiological needs of the new-born, and also have interest in new-born babies. They need to have almost a motherly instinct personality to care for helpless infants with expertise at working in a highly technical area. One also should be willing to dedicate all his time monitoring the babies while on duty.

The duties of a NICU nurse during the average workday include: Caring for the sick new-borns, feeding, bathing, and helping parents to hold the babies while in the hospital. NICU nurse contributes to the big picture of attaining high standards of sustainable and responsive healthcare for all the residents of the United States by providing quality and responsive care to the sick and helpless new-born babies. NICU nurses work in shifts of 8 or 12 hours a day in workplace environments with ill new-born infants like medical clinics, maternity centres, and hospital maternity wards. NICU nurses present their reports to the director of NICU nurses. They can also give their reports to the NICU shift colleague or nursing assistant in session to submit it to the incoming NICU nurse. A nurse in the rank of a registered NICU nurse is paid an average salary of $50,717/year in Atlanta and Georgia and an average of $60,375 in the USA according to the States Payscale (Staebler, Suzanne & Robin, p334). An average nurse receives a hooping two weeks paid vacation as per the USA Payscale.

There are many challenges that the NICU nurse realizes at work. The first most challenging thing is caring for infants struggling to survive. Babies, at times, die, resulting in a feeling of grief and loss to both the nurses and the child’s parents; therefore, these nurses must provide comfort to the bereaved families and also seek comfort from the support system (De Alarcón, et al., p128). The other challenge is anxiety and depression, due to burnouts and stress nurses undergo as they provide care. Alarm fatigue in the care areas guiding care interventions is also another challenge making nurses desensitized to sound alarms at times. Some of the positive perks they receive include enjoying exciting travels with the rewarding work, competitive wages, enjoying long term job prospects, advancing career, teaching expert care skills to parents, trusted with giving infants their best chance, and also trusted in giving support by most families. This career helps in improving the lives of fragile new-borns in the whole community. Some of the interesting fact I realized about NICU is that one need to have interest biased towards children in order to perform perfectly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this career is vital in society because it helps in improving the lives of most vulnerable innocent angels newly brought to earth. It is a very significant career helping mothers in the society who feel helpless when their child is sick and has no knowledge of what is ailing them. Therefore, this career is very relevant and necessary for me because of the passion I have always had in helping humanity and improving the livelihoods of the vulnerable groups in society like innocent new-born infants.

Works Cited

De Alarcón, Pedro, Eric Werner, and Robert D. Christensen, eds. Neonatal Hematology: pathogenesis, diagnosis, and management of hematologic problems. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Jorgensen, Anne M. "Born in the USA–the history of neonatology in the United States: a century of caring." NICU Currents 1.1 (2010): 8-11.

Staebler, Suzanne, and Robin Bissinger. "2016 Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Workforce Survey." Advances in Neonatal Care 17.5 (2017): 331-336.