Chapter 16. Care of the Pediatric Client

There are few areas in nursing more challenging or more rewarding than working with children and their families. Most nurses who work with pediatric clients will jokingly tell you that one of the first things that attracted them to the specialty was the brightly painted walls with images of Charlie Brown, Linus, and Snoopy or the fact that they get to wear uniforms imprinted with the likeness of our favorite cartoon characters. No other unit transports patients to surgery or x-ray in a bright red wagon pulled by the staff or provides much-needed R&R in the unit play room. But taking care of a sick child involves more than reading a bedtime story or making a balloon from a surgical glove. The pediatric nurse combines the knowledge of disease process with an understanding of how illness and injury affect normal growth and development and uses the best of his /her communication skills to help parents cope with illness and injury. This chapter reviews principles of normal growth and development and some of the most common disorders affecting children as well as life-threatening conditions, including childhood cancer. Conditions of the endocrine system, which require lifetime therapy, are included in Chapter 4, “Care of the Client with Endocrine Disorders.”