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, Filed Under: Career Services, Externship Adventures, Externships, Professional Opportunities

Highlights of the Pediatric ICU in Vietnam

By Niki Pham

picture of single hospital room with septic shock patient
One of the rare single rooms beings used for critical patient diagnosed with septic shock.

ICU Overview

For the second week of my internship (June 12th – 16th, 2017), I was placed in the pediatric ICU. The ICU consists of 75 beds dispersed throughout the entire 4th floor of the hospital building. The room I was primarily in was a large room divided into 5 sections by glass panes. Two sections each have 4 beds (4 for isolation precaution patients, 4 for not as critical patients, 8 total). The other three sections each contain 8 beds (24 total) for critical patients, the majority of which are on ventilators. The rest of the beds are in smaller rooms.

Because I had only been in an adult ICU for one rotation at Brackenridge my J1 semester, witnessing the ICU setting again, but with children this time, was very eye-opening and enriching to my clinical experience thus far. Dr. Nam (one of the head physicians) and Dr. Tuan An explained to me that sepsis and septic shock are very common diagnoses on this floor. They also revealed that due to it being the summer season, where fruits like lychee are in season, cases of encephalitis are expected to rise. Thus sepsis/septic shock, pneumonia, and congenital heart disease were the diagnoses I had the most exposure to this week.

Model Nurse Mentor

picture of Niki and Mr. Hoan
                   Niki & Mr. Hoan

Every now and again, I get assigned to an amazing nurse mentor to work with. As luck would have it, I had Mr. Hoan take me under his wing. Mr. Hoan has worked in the PICU for 11 years and is one of the senior staff on the team. Not only did he take the time to explain to me in English the patients’ history, he worked with me to review the nursing skills I already learned (i.e. suctioning, NG fee
ding, etc) and advocated for me to have opportunities to implement these skills. I am immensely grateful for his help as I was struggling to communicate in Vietnamese what nursing skills I already possessed. This only goes to show that good mentorship results in competent new nurses!

Nursing Skills Performed

  1. NG tube feeding
  2. Endotracheal suctioning
  3. Obtaining blood and running it through blood gas machine
  4. Started IVs
  5. Inserted Foley catheter

Other Noteworthy Moments This Week:

  1. Observed central venous catheter insertion
  2. Witnessed a physician deliver poor patient prognosis and suggestion of hospice care to family members of a child with congenital heart disease
  3. Inserted Foley catheter on child with ambiguous genitalia

Overall, I enjoyed my rotation in the pediatric ICU so much that I asked for an additional week! I’m looking forward to the opportunity to perform more nursing skills.