Letter To the Editor: “Pain Control”

Abstract

As a pediatric surgical nurse at a large children's hospital, I find that I can strongly relate to the article "Pain Control: From the Surgical Unit to the School" by Janice Selekman and Dawn Lambert, in the Journal of Pediatric Surgical Nursing. 9(2):59-63, April/June 2020. There is quite the array of research and literature available that addresses a patient's postoperative transition to home; however, there is a lack of emphasis on connecting with community health care team members. Specifically, one opportunity to positively impact patient outcomes is to resolve the lack of nurse-to-nurse transition of care. As a pediatric surgical nurse, it is not uncommon to receive more follow-up phone calls from the patient's school nurse than the parents. School nurses are well versed in medical knowledge and know the right clarifying questions to understand a child's surgical interventions and adequately address a child's pain in the outpatient setting.Yoder (2017) discussed that patient care across the fields of nursing has become increasingly complex (p. 225). In pediatric postoperative patients, especially those LetterTo the Editor