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Nursing Careers

Nursing is an honoured and rewarding profession that is founded on both the art of caring and the science of health and illness management.
Nurses are an integral part of PHSA’s team of health care professionals who work collaboratively to deliver health services through our inpatient, ambulatory care and outreach programs to patients from across B.C. We offer a multitude of options for those who are interested in a career in nursing, including a variety of innovative job opportunities in clinical practice, education, research, professional leadership and operational management.

As a nurse with BC Children's Hospital, you will have the opportunity to consolidate your skills in a variety of specialized clinical practice areas. You will care for some of the most seriously ill or injured children and youth from across B.C., or you may provide child development and rehabilitation care at Sunny Hill Health Centre for children. As an academic health centre, BC Children's Hospital offers vast opportunities for professional development, so you can continue to grow your nursing career in an area of specialization or in clinical education or leadership.

Internationally trained nurses are encouraged to contact us and learn more about qualifications for nursing positions at BC Children's Hospital.
Learn more about opportunities for international nurses


Watch this video to learn about nursing careers with PHSA, including BC Children's Hospital:



We welcome new graduates!

PSHA welcomes "New Grad" nurses – RNs and RPNs! As one of B.C's health authorities, our unique patient population requires specialized focus in our various practice areas.  Nurses at PHSA provide specialty care in a variety of clinical environments, program and service areas across the province of British Columbia. We invite you to review the programs listed below for our New Grad opportunities, which vary greatly in types of care, patients, environments, specialties and location. 

About the New Grad Nurse Program

All new graduates hired as a registered nurse (RN) or registered psychiatric nurse (RPN) will be placed into a regular or temporary position, with a minimum 0.7 to full-time-employee hours for the first six months of employment.

The program is available for the first 18 months after nursing graduation and provides new graduates the unique opportunity to consolidate their nursing practice and start their career specializing in either pediatrics, child & youth mental health, perinatal, oncology or adult mental health nursing.

New grads also benefit from in-depth orientation and training, mentorship by experienced team members, and a warm welcome!

New Grads are welcomed into the following BC Children's Hospital units, as well as at Sunny Hill Health Centre:

  • Mental Health Programs
  • Medical & Surgical Units
  • Nursing Resource Team 
  • Oncology/Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplant
  • Emergency department
  • Operating Room AORN Training 

Special training programs

Employed Student Nurse Program

Our Employed Student Nurse (ESN) program provides a nursing employment opportunity to work in a clinical setting from 250 to 400 hours of hands-on experience with pay. These hours will help you consolidate your theory and clinical skills, build on your nursing practice, and participate as a team member. In many cases, you can also apply your earned seniority toward your first RN/RPN job with us.

Training cohorts

The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) hires new nursing team members three times a year to join the Advanced Pediatric Critical Care Specialty Training cohort. This employer-paid, 24-month program offered through BCIT will further enhance critical care nursing skills and support RNs professional growth in this specialized career pathway. In addition, relocation assistance or work visa support may be available for successful candidates.


Units & specialized services

 

‎The Medical Day Unit provides a safe, effective and family-centred environment for children and youth requiring medical treatments, diagnostic tests, procedures, assessments, education and consultations. 


Nurses have the opportunity to treat children with complex chronic illnesses such as Crohn’s disease, liver disease and other gastrointestinal diseases, lupus, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and other rheumatologic diseases, brittle bone disease, kidney disease, biochemical diseases, and enzyme deficiencies. Nurses also treat immune-compromised patients with immune globulin infusions.

The Medical Inpatient Unit is a 48-bed unit that provides care to infants, children and adolescents who require medical care for general pediatric conditions. These may include metabolic, respiratory, nephrology, endocrine and mental health diagnoses. Nurses have the opportunity to care for patients who require both short term and long-term admissions as well as repeat admissions. As a clinical teaching site, the Medical Inpatient Unit hosts a wide variety of learners, including nurses, physicians, and allied health team members.

 

Surgical inpatient units offer a wide range of services for children recovering from surgery, including neurosciences and cardiac surgery. 


Children in the inpatient unit receive treatment for seizures, epilepsy, cranial surgeries, including tumour resections, spinal surgeries, head injuries, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Myasthenia Gravis, as well as postoperative care as they recover from the different surgical services. OR nurses provide services including general surgery, orthopedics, urology, plastic surgery, gynecology, ophthalmology, ENT (ear, nose and throat), dental, cardiac and cardio-thoracic surgery. 


The Burn Program is also situated in this area, where specialists offer expert burn care and pain management for children and youth.

 

The Oncology/Hematology/BMT (Onc/Hem/BMT) Inpatient Unit is a 27-bed unit that provides care to infants, children and adolescents who require medical care for childhood cancers, complex blood disorders, and blood and marrow transplant. As the provincial referral centre for childhood cancer and hematologic care, nurses have the opportunity to care for patients who are undergoing the latest innovative and supportive treatments. As a clinical teaching site, the Onc/Hem/BMT unit hosts a wide variety of learners, including nurses, physicians, and allied health team members.

 

BC Children's Hospital's Operating Rooms are the only dedicated Pediatric Operating rooms in British Columbia. The Operating Rooms include a wide number of specialty services, including a Cardiac Nursing Team and a Spine Team. Our 24-hour operating room provides the best possible surgical care to all children in British Columbia, as well as children from other provinces and territories in Western Canada. Operating Rooms are open Monday to Friday, and most nurses work from 0730 – 1545, with smaller evening and night shift teams providing coverage from 1530 onwards. 24-hour coverage is provided seven days a week. Services we provide include: trauma surgery, scoliosis surgery, a cardiac program featuring a heart transplant program, ENT, dental, orthopedic, plastics, neurosurgery, pediatric surgery, urology, gynecology, and ophthalmology.

 

The Anesthetic Care Unit provides pre-operative preparation and post-operative care for up to 50 patients per day, Monday to Friday, as well as on-call coverage overnight for children who need emergency care. This fast-paced and challenging unit is staffed by highly skilled nurses who take a family-centered approach to providing care through all phases of the patient journey. Nurses care for patients in the pre-assessment phase of care, pre-operatively on the day of surgery, and through all phases of post-anesthetic care. Patients range in age from neonates to adolescents requiring an anesthetic in order to have a procedure. While the majority of patients are treated and go home on the same day, the unit also provides care for our admit-day-of-surgery patients.

 

The Emergency Department (ED) at BC Children's Hospital  provides clinical care for sick and/or injured children from all areas of the province of British Columbia.  Approximately 50,000 children, from birth to 16 years old, present to the BC Children's Hospital ED annually. These presentations include illness and injury across the entire acuity spectrum from non-urgent to emergent and include all medical and surgical sub-specialty presentations, including Mental Health. BC Children's Hospital ED is a provincial referral center and the tertiary care Level 1 Trauma Centre, providing Tier 6 (Level 1) subspecialty pediatric trauma services for the province. All patients are triaged according to the Canadian Acuity Triage Scale which determines their level of urgency requiring medical care.

 
 

The Critical Care program treats more than 1,200 children annually, and is the only intensive care unit in the province that specializes in pediatric medicine. Using a family-centered approach, care is given to infants and children from newborn to age 17 who have urgent needs due to life threatening disease from injury or following surgery, such as cardiac or brain surgery. The multidisciplinary team of physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals provides timely assessments and treatments with the goal of achieving the best possible outcomes for critically ill children. The program also provides leadership in research and education about critically ill children.


The Critical Care Unit (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, PICU) is a 28-bed specialty area. The PICU is arranged in 3 PODS of specialty care – Cardiac and Medical/Surgical. The nursing team is well-supported by a leadership team. Roles such as the Program Manager, Clinical Educators, Clinical Nurse Coordinators, the Clinical Nurse Specialist and the Quality Risk Leader ensure that nurses can provide the best quality patient care possible while utilizing education and research resources creatively and effectively.

BC Children’s Hospital’s Mental Health services are for children and youth who are experiencing severe mental and emotional distress or serious psychiatric symptoms. Outpatient treatment is provided for patients not admitted into the hospital. The nurses and social workers within our specialty clinics see children and youth with a variety of mental health disorders, providing treatment during daytime hours on weekdays. Inpatient treatment is provided for patients admitted to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Emergency (CAPE) unit, Child Psychiatry unit, Adolescent Psychiatry unit, or Eating Disorders unit.

 

BC Children's Hospital's Medical Imaging provides a complete range of primary and tertiary diagnostic imaging and image-guided diagnostic and therapeutic services to children and adolescents from across the province. Our team has experience with the radiological management of unusual, complex or therapeutically demanding problems in infants and adolescents. These services include general radiography (X-Ray), Computed Tomography (CT scan), Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Vascular and Interventional procedures and cardiac imaging. These procedures help patients in all areas of the hospital and clinics. ‎

 

The Nursing Resource Team (NRT) is a dynamic group of 60 RNs who provide care in several areas throughout BC Children's Hospital. This is a pool of RNs who pride themselves on being flexible, adaptable and having a wealth of general pediatric knowledge to meet the needs of the organization. Family-centered and trauma-informed care are two guiding principles on the NRT. The NRT are supported throughout their shift both by their own leaders and the unit-based leaders. At all times, a family-centered approach is maintained to meet the needs of the patient.‎

 

SOURCE: Nursing Careers ( )
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