Pediatric Nursing Salary Questions

Whether treating a minor illness or a serious injury, a pediatric nurse is an important figure in medical care. Treating a developing body is a whole different ballgame than treating a fully-grown one; both illness and treatment may take on vastly different aspects in a child than in an adult. Pediatric nursing involves a special skill set and knowledge base around the specific medical needs of young patients, whether toddlers or adolescents. In addition to this specialized knowledge, a pediatric nurse also needs to be deft in handling worried parents and scared or stubborn little patients. When a child is sick or hurt, the presence of a pediatric nurse can be a source of immense comfort to the family, and it is often the pediatric nurse who educates caregivers about their child's continuing medical needs. Caring for society's smallest, most fragile members is a precise and often delicate business. Nurses who are considering expanding into pediatric nursing often have salary questions, such as: where is pediatric nurse salary highest? What is pediatric nursing salary like in a hospital as opposed to a private practice? Which is higher, a pediatric nurse practitioner's salary or a pediatric registered nurse's salary? All these questions and more can be answered with PayScale's pediatric nurse salary data.

Pediatric Nurse Salary Data

As you can see from the Pediatric Nurse Salary by State chart above, salary for a pediatric nurse depends a great deal on location. Massachusetts currently has one of the lowest median pediatric nurse salaries, but a move of just a couple of hundred miles to the southwest, to Pennsylvania, could increase a pediatric nurse's salary by almost $30,000. Investigating Pediatric Nurse Salary by Hospital Setting, we can see that pediatric nurse salary when working in a physician's office or other private practice is slightly higher than when working in a general hospital. Working in a private practice may also offer the benefit of more regular hours. What about a pediatric nurse practitioner's salary vs. a pediatric registered nurse salary? The Median Salary by Job chart for the skill/specialty of pediatrics shows that a pediatric nurse practitioner's salary and a family nurse practitioner's salary are both higher than that of a registered nurse.

To continue your research into salaries for children's medical care, compare PayScale's pediatric nurse salary data with data for neonatal nurse salary.