Neonatal ICU over and now its Pediatric ICU time.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what to write but have come up short every time on actually writing.  I will try not to be spastic in this entry but I don't know if I can help it.

I discovered the other day that our facility is doing research on continuous epinephrine in situations with exacerbation of asthma in our emergency department.  I discovered this after searching pubmed and uptodate for hours for supporting research, to ultimately ask and find out it is a research trial in emergency treatment.  I couldn't help but feel excited that I had been involved in a cutting edge and possibly "ground breaking" development of asthma management in pediatrics.  With all of that said, it feels very awkward that continuous epinephrine (not racemic epinephrine) is just now being researched, I will admit the person who told me may have been wrong and there is another reason we do it.

Anyway, the NICU has been amazing and I am one of the only therapists in my group that thought so.  I like how involved I am as a therapist in the treatment and evaluation-of-progress in the NICU population.

I was actually asked for recommendations by a few physicians.  I really enjoyed the side-by-side position I have as a therapist in the NICU and the treatment of the babies.  As therapists we care much more about the "Why" we do something instead of just "How" to do it, which I think is a fundamental issue with the future of the profession... Why is a therapists job, How is a technicians jobs; what do you want to be? I enjoy being a therapist.

My first day in the PICU was pretty much an overview of protocols and equipment and a general orientation to the units.  We have something like 115 beds in the PICU, and we had 90something in the NICU so its going to be pretty intense...

I will definitely miss the NICU, ultimately I still don't know where I want to be primarily, maybe an ED and NICU therapist.  Though at this facility after a year I have to pick just one and become a primary therapist in that specialty.  I am very lucky to work at a facility like this, considering almost every other facility doesn't have specialties, but instead just forces therapists to do everything with only staffing in mind instead of capabilities.

You'll hear from me again soon.

Tampa in November? I am considering it.