Empowered Nurses: A Win-Win Situation in Pediatric Critical Care

The atmosphere of a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) is charged, fast paced, stressful, and tiring with emphasis on precision of care. Pediatric critical care nursing is still in its infancy stage in India and other low middle income countries. The lack of resources, staff shortage, migration and brain drain are persistent issues in India. There is lack of career advancement as well as exposure to research activities. Keeping these barriers in mind, over the years, we have adopted certain multipronged strategies in our PICU with the objective of empowering, and motivating our nursing personnel. We have been able to 'build a horizontal team' where each member feels wanted and works to his/her maximum capacity. This model of nurse empowerment may be reproduced by other institutions especially in low middle income countries that are also struggling with similar problems.