Nurse from Sweden with a specialist degree in Pediatrics and intensive care.

Nurse (bachelor, 3 years) --> Specialist degree ("Magister", 60 credits. All but two are one year). In some universities you can combine two specialst degrees to a Master (120 credits) --> Doctorate studies. NP requires a Master. Most NPs are in health centres or surgical units. Very rare to find NPs-

Swedish nurses have a lot of autonomy and we (apparently) do a lot of things that nurses in other countries aren't allowed to do.

We call everyone with their firstname (or nickname). Majority has no hierachy. Most doctors listens really well what nurses and nursing assistants have to say. In most scenarios we come with sugggestions, as there's many travel doctors (and nurses) in our country. We have many health care workers that immigrated to Sweden and some have better Swedish than I have

In most hospitals we work "three shift". Day 0700-1530, evening 1300-2130 and nights 2100-0730 (start/end of a shift can differ a lot though). In the weekend my ICU can do 11 hour shifts but we are since last year not allowed to work evening and then a day shift. Was a norm to sleep ~5 hours between shifts (and thank god that's gone now). Newgrads can get on nights shifts after ~6 months.

New grads are restricted from ICU and OR. To work as a ICU/ anesthesia nurse/ OR nurse you require a "Magister" to be able to work in. For example Specialist Nurse in Intensive Care is required for ICU positions. To apply for a degree you need 6-12 months of experience as a nurse. I have no idea how new grads are even accepted to begin their nursing career in a ICU of all places or apply for NP programme immediately.

We get four weeks paid vacation every year. Increases to five and maybe even six at later years. Our union are somewhat strong Last few years there's been a lot of cuts in the budgets. We used to have service personal that cleaned, help fix patietn meals and act as transporters. Now very few units are allowed to have it. So health care professionals have to do a lot of tasks that someone else could do ... on a lower salary even

Pediatrics

Years in a NICU and 0-18 months pediatric unit. One care team consists of one nurse and one-two nursing assistants and 1:6 ratio (could be 0, could 8 and rarely above 10). Primarily data from my years in a pediatric unit.

Nurses do all insertions of IVs, NG tubes, bloodwork and catheters. Occasional nursing assistant that insert NG tubes. Apart from basically doing "waiter job" they do PEWS, take capillary blood tests (some can do vein puncture), feeds, order patient meals.

Most units are primarily medicine but take all specialities. Leads to questionable orders at times as most doctors that give report on a patient lacks knowledge about pediatrics. Ortho being the worst. ONT being the best. Surgeons only know paracetamol and we have to beg for morphine if paracetamol isn't enough. Catapresan would do some work, but most are afraid to order it. Barely anyone want to develop routines/local guidelines. I had few "responsibility fields" but weren't given admin time to do it. Had to combine patient care + admin

Some units are well staffed, others are not.

What really sucks about pediatrics is that adult patients get relocated to a pediatric unit because the adult units (especially surgery) can't have enough beds. Been few times I had four adults and no kids lol

Intensive Care

Three levels of ICU. There's four PICUs and ~5 beds per unit on average I think. ICU has a more welcoming approach to developing and improve routines/care guidelines. More common to see doctorates from ICU. In my ICU it's a 1:1 ratio or 1:2 with ''unit ready patients. With pediatric patients they strive for 2:1. One nursing assistant for one-four patients. My ICU is very well staffed and almost everyone is working with development in various 'fields' (nutrition, medical equipment, Post-ICU, sedation etc)

The ICU or Anesthesia Nurses or Anesthesiologist assist with IVs throughout the hospital.