Abstract

Caring for hospitalized children and their families can be a challenge for nurses. In the routine of the pediatric service, children of any age should face a situation which includes changes in routines, a different environment, procedures, pain, and strangers, which generates anxiety, fear and uncertainty which he will address with acquired skills in his development and with the support provided by parents and family, who will give him security in this life experience. Nurses must contribute to this experience being kind, comprehensive and avoiding suffering and pain to child and parents, understanding caring as a part of lived experience of this families. The aim of the study is comprehending the experience of becoming a pediatric nurse, using the Theory of Human becoming for its analysis. This approach is based in nursing as a human science, and guides nurses in their practice to focus on quality of life as it is described and lived. Using a qualitative descriptive method, nurses from a pediatric hospital were interviewed, emerging four themes that describes the experience of being a pediatric nurse: Becoming a Pediatric Nurse, beyond the hospital; Discovering feelings of guilt and frustration when communication / relationship with parents is difficult; Discovering the feelings of rage with a job that demands an effort sometimes not recognized; Being a pediatric nurse requires skills. Results shows nurse´s caring children focalized in skills and administration tasks, avoiding communication with parents. It´s imperative to change this, strengthening communication skills and knowledge about child development. It is proposed to change the care management model from a biomedical perspective to one based on a family-centered model, with a disciplinary vision based in nursing as a human science.