Clinical Assistant PICU

• Job Summary
  • Works under the supervision of RNs and LPNs to provide assistive care and communication for patients, team members, professional, and technical staff, and visitors.
• Education
  • High school diploma or equivalent. Candidate must have at least one of the following:
    • Six months of patient care experience within the last two years.
    • Enrolled in a medical related college program and in clinical rotation.
    • CNA,CMA, PCT or EMT certification.
  • Candidates who are a graduate of an accredited nursing program waiting on NCLEX re-testing will also be considered for this position.
• Experience
• Licensures, Certifications, and/or Registries
  • Current BLS certification required.

Additional Information

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is a 24-bed unit, located on 7th floor quarterback in the Russell Building. The PICU has 24/7 Pediatric Intensivist coverage, as well as Pediatric ICU Fellows and Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. PICU also has 2nd-year residents who do rotations throughout the year. The collaboration between the disciplines is excellent. Patient-Family Centered Rounds are done 2-3 times daily with participation from family and staff.  There is a multi-disciplinary team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, nutritionists, chaplains, respiratory therapists, social workers, physical therapists and child life therapists that are included in rounds.

The PICU patient population is very diverse. About 60 % of the patients are medical patients and about 40% are surgical.  Of the surgical patients, half are trauma patients.  We care for children with a wide variety of diagnoses including but not limited to: respiratory failure, renal failure, shock, status epilepticus, status asthmatics, GI bleeding, and burns.  We also care for patients requiring ECMO and CRRT, and post-Liver or Kidney transplant patients.   We care for patients ranging from days old up to 21+ (chronic patients still under the care of their pediatric subspecialists). The average patient length of stay is between 3-4 days.  

Our normal nurse to patient ratio is 1:1 or 1:2 and sometimes in extremely critical patients 2:1 (such as ECMO, or patients requiring massive transfusion resuscitation). Our Charge Nurse does not take a patient load and manages the day to day operation and patient flow in the unit. Depending on census/acuity there will be 1 to 2 Resource PICU nurses who float around the unit assisting with procedures, admissions, transfers, and codes.  PICU physicians and nurses also respond to Codes throughout the hospital, and act as back-ups for the rapid response team.