Pediatric Nurses are a vital support system in any healthcare institution. They deal with infants and children. They have to be extremely sensitive while attending to the infants, making sure that all the entities on a newly born are properly placed. Nurses often need to be the first on-call person when a child comes into a hospital with their parents. They need to be trained in child psychology as well. If you aspire to become a Pediatric Nurse, try reading up on this more to have a full contextual understanding of your job and also to get an edge on your interview.
Types of Questions Asked
For a Pediatric Nurse position in a hospital or any healthcare institution, two parameters are often judged. Your behavioral aptitude and Job aptitude. Though these are not exact formalized terms, nonetheless the nature of the questions asked will hinge on either of the sides.
Behavioral Questions
Questions bordering on behavior assessment often check a person’s behavior, emotional health, and common communication skills that are required in a Pediatric Nurse position. Here, you will be judged on situational questions, questions on your response, and questions about prioritizing things, you can sum up and describe it as soft skill questions in a customer services industry.
That being said, here you need to understand all these factors in context to little children, infants, and kids. You would require a tad bit of training in Child Pedagogy as well in this regard.
Job Questions
Here questions about technique, tools, and protocol-based responses will be asked. For instance, Pediatric nurses have to administer vaccines and they have to also run immunization drives. Even here, basic psychological questions of assessing signs of distress while administering a drug or vaccine. Simple Questions like when to move into an ICU,
If the doctor is not on call that day etc. These are more pragmatic and rational questions where there is a higher degree of certainty with the answers. If you have prior experience, you will be able to get the answers easily.
Important Pediatric Nurse Interview Questions
List of Behavioral Pediatric Nurse Interview Questions
Q. Why do you think you are fit for this role?
This question is asked to see How do you assess yourself in this role. It gazes into your being to find if the words you are spilling out, do you mean them or if you are just throwing them around. You would be able to answer this question easily when you have thought that you wanted this job. Be true to yourself and state all the reasons that you think justify your being meant for this role.
Sample Answer:
Sir, with all due respect, I have always loved kids, and I get along with them well. During my time period of being in nursing school when I contemplated my stream, it was very simple for me, I had to choose, Pediatrics. My love for children if it can be included in my career, I feel I can elevate myself to become a better human being in the future.
Q. What qualities would you require in a good nurse?
This question is another important question. Here, the judgment is basically on your perception and inherent ability to spot qualities that are unequivocally necessary to reach the tier of an elder nurse. Try to keep the first and the second question as important, you do not want to look or project yourself as meek, but on the other hand questions like these judge humility and honesty to the profession as well. Make it sound like despite you not having a particular trait, that is needed in a nursing professional.
Sample Answer:
Good nurse has to cope with difficult situations and sensitize themselves to the situations happening. Infants tend to be fragile and emotionally vulnerable, so a nurse has to learn child pedagogy and related affairs to be able to straighten the situation. I would want to have a long list of qualities in learning child psychology to make myself ready for the situations.
Q. If someone comes and asks for medical services and is overtly emotional, what shall be your next move?
If the elderly come and ask for emergency services, you are bound to console them and make them feel secure that the health institutions are there behind their back to help their kid and child. A parent or a guardian if they are having a panic attack and are getting induced in trauma, would require to give them counseling at that moment as well. You have to be proactive in spotting distress and treating them at the very right moment. After the adult is calm and composed explain the medical situation of the brought-in child with utmost decency and empathy.
Sample Answer
My first duty as a nurse will be to inform any on-call doctor at the very moment to skip delays. Apart from that, I need to create a sacred sphere around a parent so that I can give them assurance their child is in the right hands. I will console them and make them hopeful by giving a real-life example of how the following ailment or circumstance was made right in the hospital. And that they have nothing to worry about, everything will be alright in no time.
Q. How are you with your peers?
Please you need to remember that a workplace gets run by a team, not a person. You have to make sure that you have all the right elements in place to run and collaborate with your team. Glitches or stoppages at work can occur, and you need to get codependent mutually accessible relationships with your peers to steer away from any messy situation. Always treat your peers kindly, be on hold for them, and assist them as they will revert back to you, because of their kindness.
Sample Answer
I am very friendly with my peers. I know that in my troubles they will come forward and help me. No one else can, in such a fix. I will always keep them as my peers, treat them with the utmost kindness and always assist them when they require an additional hand for help. They will do the same when I would be in need of some serious help.
Q. How would others working with you describe you?
This question is tricky as well as very subtle in its unfurling intentions. Others describing you are added just to check how others feel about you when you work. Do they like you or not? On the surface, this question appears to be a very direct to-the-point question, but that’s not the real intention of the question. On deeper levels, the question tests your honesty and integrity but also your capability. So, you need to make sure to be realistic about how others see and perceive you, but not utopian, shaping yourself like a goody to shoes.
Sample Answer
As far as I am concerned, this is not an easy question, it is not placid and plain as it looks. There requires a lot of looking into deeper nuance. Be correct but don’t exaggerate your position regarding the situation.
Q. What are your hobbies?
Again, keep your caution alert high, this is a question based on your instincts and not hobbies. What do you like? And if that liking unequivocally represents your profession. You can talk about watching documentaries on social issues, volunteering for people’s care, helping your community, and doing community service. All of these need to be done in order to establish you as a person of substance.
Sample Answer
I like working for part-time community services for feeding the homeless. The service starts every day at 5 PM near my neighborhood. I go there and contribute through my work and assist in the preparation needed for handling food in bulk and offering it to our homeless folks.
List of Pediatric Nurse Job Interview Questions
As with behavioral questions where things can be speculated as per the person sitting next to you about your knowledge and experience gained, it is not so with job-centric questions. The job-centric questions are very direct and to the point and do not have a lot of “beating around the bush” elements to them. Let us know about these questions firsthand and discuss the accurate responses needed in tackling them.
Q. What medical services do nurses provide in absence of a Doctor?
As stated earlier, speculation is not a strong suit here. There is a fixed answer for this, you need to talk about vaccines, salination, knowledge of tools, and other sensitizing elements while operating. Code words used in the ICU while operating, all are extremely important aspects of consideration that you need to take into account.
Sample Answer
Nurses are in full authority to provide vaccination and immunization antibodies. They can draw blood and send it to pathology labs. They can enquire about all the pretesting needs like weight check, blood pressure check, and heart rate check and can even order an ECG if required before letting them in. In this case, a nurse has full authority to medically do all of these things on a child. In case, they are posted under a doctor’s operation room. They also need to know about tools, and stitching techniques when a person is being operated on for a tumor, etc.
Q. What is the standard protocol of a daily Nurse?
A daily Nurse has some very simple rules that they need to follow on point regardless. First one they need to be the first person to receive the patient. They need to remain with the doctor when the patient is checked for the first time. In case there is a resident patient than he or she if coming on critical care would be required by the Nurse to check all the vitals in an ICU. They need to make daily checks on their patients etc. mention all these things.
Sample Answer
A daily Nurse requires to follow very set standard protocols without batting an eye. In the place, I worked with I was in charge of first duty services. I had to record vitals and report to the on-call doctor for any alternative collection mainly popped-off liquids, blood sampling, skin freckles, etc. I was also in charge of assigned duties and nursing the patient, preparing their food orders. I also helped them to eat and with their daily ablutions.
Q. What did you learn about patient handling in your Nursing school?
This question also appears to be cut loose like a flair on-air question but it is more than that. Here the test is pretty much on what your idea is about patient handling. There are some core areas that a Nurse needs to address when a patient enters the hospital corridors. You need to equip yourself with these laws and present your case.
Sample Answer
In Nursing school, it was mandatory for us to do a list of these acts when a person comes to the hospital. And they are:
1. We need to first go and assist the person with a child where we see their emotional condition and then counsel them and sympathetically give them confidence in the working potential of the hospital.
2. Then, we need to hand over a form for hospital entry, in case it’s an emergency, we will hand them in, or else Front Office that read receipts will do the work for normal visiting patients.
3. After checking a patient’s vitals that is heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen intake. We hand over to the on-call doctor in this case a Pediatrician.
4. As a nurse, we are also expected to go and emotionally sensitize with a person’s distress until Doctor arrives for a checkup.
5. After the checkup, Doctor briefs you on the current condition of the patient and if you are a head Nurse you might order a trainee Nurse to look after vitals, eating, and ablution task and inform them or the Doc if the situation deteriorates.
Conclusion
Being in the healthcare profession is a noble job. But on top of that, being a Pediatric Nurse is nobler as you care and nurse for infants and small children. You have to be very emotionally sensitive and caring for the job. I have listed and answered some of the most common questions that can be asked, majority of questions are behavioral related, but there are also questions of job related affairs.
