JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A nurse’s job is often tough, and National Nurses Week is a time to recognize their sacrifices and hard work.
“It’s difficult. We see things that people shouldn’t see, ever,” said pediatric ER trauma nurse Amy Hodge.
To fully understand what Hodge and the rest of her pediatric trauma nurses go through, News4JAX was granted access inside the Wolfson Children’s Hospital emergency room, where at any given time, nurses can find themselves treating children with horrific, life-altering, and life-threatening injuries.
Wolfson Children’s Hospital emergency room is the region’s only designated level one pediatric trauma center. The facility is staffed with nurses with years of pediatric emergency room experience.
News4JAX spoke with six nurses about why they chose pediatric trauma nursing and what it’s like to be in their shoes. All six said treating critically injured and sick children was their destiny.
“I’ve always been a part of kids’ lives, so I knew I wanted to take care of children when I was in nursing school,” said Hodge, who has been treating children for 12 years.
“I knew whatever I did in life was going to be working with children,” said Anise Williams, who has been treating children for 13 years.
Working with sick and injured children is never a dull moment in the emergency room. One minute, they could be trying their best to cheer up a young patient who is not feeling well, then, the next minute, they could be prepping and transferring an injured patient as young as an infant or as old as a teenager for life-saving surgery. Sometimes, without notice, a new emergency comes through the doors requiring swift action.
Being a pediatric trauma nurse can be physically exhausting with very little downtime. Their treating kids with injuries that come from accidents, gun violence, and at times, child neglect and abuse. Within the past 10 days, Wolfson ER nurses have tried to save a child who drowned, and another child who got hold of his parent’s gun and accidentally shot himself. Both children were pronounced deceased.
Mentally, it’s a lot to take in, especially for the nurses who are also parents.
“I’ve always told my children that if I come home after a shift and I hug you a little tighter, that’s because it’s been a tough night,” said nurse Diehnee Hodan, who has been working with sick children for 14 years, despite originally getting a college degree in early childhood education.
“I come home, and I hug them and kiss them, and I’m thankful for their healthy lives,” said nurse Melissa Caslib
“I have three children, and my baby girl is adopted. There are times when we have cases that come in involving the Department of Children and Families, or kids that need homes, and it makes me think about my daughter and how blessed I am to have her,” said Hodge.
Without a doubt, the nursing staff can see the worst of the worst, but it’s how they deal with it that helps them continue to do their jobs.
“We rely on each other to get through these tough times,” said Hodge.
“We do a really good job of meeting as a team here when we’ve had hard shifts,” said Annie Kate Smit, who has been treating children in the ER for nearly eight years.
“After we have a bad situation, we always come together and talk about it and have a chance to let out our emotions. Once we get finished, we still have all these other patients we have to see,” said Williams.
Tammy Daniel is the chief nursing officer over the entire Baptist Health and Wolfson Children’s Hospital nursing staff. Although she is an administrator, she is also still a nurse with experience treating sick and injured adults, and admits that working with sick and injured children is not for everyone.
“I thought I wanted to be a pediatric nurse. I tried it. It was too hard for me. I couldn’t do it,” Daniel said.
When it comes to a nursing team debrief, following the death or permanent disfigurement of a child, Daniel said it’s a necessary practice to ensure the staff can mentally focus on other young patients who still need medical attention.
“People need to talk about what they are emotionally feeling, and when you talk about it with your friends and co-workers, you realize you are not alone, and their having similar feelings, or you feel like you’ve done everything possible, you can move on to take care of that next child,” Daniel said.
Despite the daily physical and mental toll placed on the nurses, they all have that one mindset when it comes to their young patients.
“We need to help make them better and help families feel better on top of that,” said nurse Caitlyn Carlson, who has spent the last four years of her decade-old nursing career working in the emergency room.
All the nurses said the best part of their job is knowing that an injured or sick child is going to make a full recovery.