Community Collaboration: Clinical Experiences at a Pediatric Medical Day Care.

Background: Faculty charged with ensuring appropriate clinical experiences for prelicensure students face numerous challenges, including limited access to specialty acute care sites, particularly maternal-child, ambulatory and community settings to prepare students to care for clients outside of the hospital.

Method: An innovative collaboration with a pediatric medical day care provided prelicensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing students exposure to nursing roles in caring for medically fragile children outside of the acute care environment.

Results: Providing care for children with special needs allowed students to make connections between theory and practice, explore developmental concepts, and practice specific nursing skills.

A survey of role diversity among advanced practice nurses in pediatric gastroenterology.

A survey of advanced practice nurses in the Association of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition Nurses (APGNN) was conducted to assess role diversity in anticipation of sharing these results with our international colleagues at the World Congress in 2004. A single-page, 14-item survey was sent via e-mail or fax to 79 APGNN advanced practice nurses identified by their credentials (MS, PNP, FNP) in the membership database. Forty surveys were returned via e-mail or fax for an overall response rate of 51%.

Methods to confirm feeding tube placement: application of research in practice.

Numerous published studies have demonstrated that conventional methods for documenting proper position of orally or nasally placed feeding tubes in adults are inaccurate. The few available studies done in children indicate similar inadequacies. Auscultation after insufflation of air over the stomach and other less common practices used to verify proper tube position have been shown to be ineffective in predicting correct tube position.

Probiotic use in children.

Interest in nutritional supplements and functional foods has risen significantly in recent years. Many of the products that are marketed to consumers tout the benefits of probiotics for general good health and for a wide variety of conditions and situations. Although most of these products have been used safely for years, careful analysis of scientific research should be conducted before routinely recommending these products, especially for children.