The Emergency Department (ED) provides clinical care for approximately 50,000 sick and/or injured children aged newborn to 16 each year. Patients arrive from across British Columbia including local residents and those transferred from other facilities or emergency events, with presentations including illness and injury across the entire acuity spectrum, and include all medical and surgical sub-specialty presentations, including mental health.
BC Children’s Hospital ED is a provincial referral center and the tertiary care Level 1 Trauma Centre, providing Tier 6 (Level 1) subspecialty pediatric trauma services for the province. All patients are triaged according to the Canadian Acuity Triage Scale which determines their level of urgency requiring medical care.
Bedside nurses are allocated to a four-bed space to admit to and discharge from; and work with a full interdisciplinary team including a charge nurse. With experience and training, additional nursing roles are also available within the ED:
- Low-acuity area: look after a varying number of patients with a physician or nurse practitioner
- Triage nurse: advanced practice, assesses arriving patients for level of acuity
- Trauma nurse / Code Team: advanced critical care practice for trauma nursing
- Mental wellness: supporting patients in mental health crisis to remain safe
- Charge nurse: leadership role in the ED, oversees patient flow and staffing assignments
New team members participate in BC Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Education Program: an asynchronous onboarding and education program that blends eLearning, skills and simulation to help prepare nurses to work at a novice level within the hospital. This 15-week-long program is utilized by all inpatient areas and, when completed, offers nurses an opportunity to pursue their pediatric specialty credential through BCIT (should they wish to do, not required).
You need to have graduated from a recognized nursing program and preferably, have at least one year of nursing experience, ideally in pediatric or emergency room nursing.
Once you complete a skills and competency assessment form, orientation is tailored to the level of experience that you bring (range is 12 shifts to 6 months following a general 2-week hospital Pediatric Nursing Orientation). Orientation is a combination of self-directed, classroom, simulation and supported hands-on learning.
We have a variety of full-time and part-time master rotations which include D/N (12 hrs) and D/E (12 hrs – 07-19, 11-23 and/or 13-01) shift patterns. New hires typically work a full-time D/N rotation for the first year, although they may bid into other available lines based on availability and seniority.
