Scope of Practice Paper- Pediatrics

Scope of Practice Paper- Pediatrics

Scope of Registered Pediatric Nurse (RPN)

A registered pediatric nurse is responsible for taking care of children, adolescents and children who are admitted to medical institutions or hospitals. These nurses are responsible for performing physical examinations of the children and they take care of medication as per the prescription of the doctor. Small children are normally afraid of taking medicine and are also afraid of the medical settings; pediatric nurses have to take care of such situations by using speech therapies, so that the patient could become relax and they could conduct required tests and procedures for treatment in a smooth and effective way. The basic duties of registered pediatric nurse are quite similar to the normal nurse's job description such as taking blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature of the patient.

They have to take care of patients according to the direction of the doctor. They have to collect samples of patient's blood and urine for laboratory tests (Karen, 2004). There are some pediatric nurses who have specialization in areas like surgical, medical unit, neonatal ICU, oncology and hematology etc. The scope of registered pediatric nurse is to keep regular checkups of the children and to educate the parents of patient about how to take care of their children when they are discharged from the hospital. Pediatric nurses are also trained for diagnosing the disease of the patient and to administer the emergency treatment in the absence of the pediatric physician or doctor. Small children or adolescents do not have the ability to express their feelings of pain to any one; the only thing they know is to cry (Kramer, 1993). In these cases the role of the pediatric nurse is to identify the pain that they are facing and they are responsible to further communicate it to the doctors so that they can suggest an effective medication procedure or treatment plan.

Scope of Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)

The licensed practical nurse is to take care of the injured, disabled, sick and convalescent under the direction of registered nurses and physicians. Most of the licensed practical nurse is responsible for providing basic bedside care to all the patients within the medical institution. They have to take regular checkups of the patients such as blood pressure, temperature, respiration rate and pulse rate (Blanchfield, 1996). They have to keep a close check over ...