NICU Team – Doctors & Nurses & Management Team

When you have a premature baby and likely to spend quiet some time in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, you need to try and build relationships with different individuals in NICU.

Our NICU had a big team with a few doctors, lots of nurses and one unit manager.

There were two main Neonatologists rotating every month. When one of them was on shift, he would be in the hospital 24/7. Then there were resident doctors who were in the process of obtaining their neonatology residency. They covered for the neonatologists when there was need. I talked to all the doctors on a regular basis. Whenever I had a medical question, I did not hesitate to ask the available doctor as many times as I needed. They were all incredibly supportive and informative.

Neonatologist did rounds in the mornings with their assistant doctors and nurses. Nurse in charge took notes and updated the treatment plan, which then got implemented by nurses.

D. got taken care of by two nurses in one day: One nurse during the day until 7 pm and then another nurse from 7 pm to 7 am next morning. I almost never got to see night nurses due to timings. However, I was best friends with day nurses. They went with my reasonable asks and not very reasonable drama😊

Each nurse spends 2-3 days with one baby, then a different nurse takes over. This primarily benefited nurses’ professional development. I understood where this rule wass coming from. However, as a parent, I did not appreciate this approach. Will tell you why.

There was a huge file with all the details included about your baby’s status. Whenever nurses shifted, most recent feeding and treatment plan was transferred to the new nurse. That is how exchange of information happened.

I have seen information, plans, scan dates got lost in translation during this exchange. I felt the need of tracking every detail myself. I always tried to attend the rounds and always took notes of the most recent treatment plan decided by the doctors. So, I would cross check with the nurse every time I visited.

There were nurses who were not taking the treatment plan change as serious as others. I tried to avoid it but there came a point where I was not comfortable leaving NICU. At that point, I had a chat with the NICU manager and that is when she came into the picture for me. She was very understanding and helped me with my case.

As a parent, observing the team members and acting accordingly helped my preemie baby get the best treatment possible. I had to be the advocate for her and that is how I approached the situation without losing respect and kindness. At the end, NICU team is my hero for life!