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Building a long-term nursing career in PICU
- Carli WhittakerHead of Nursing, Children and Young People at the Royal College of Nursing
Key points
- PICU offers nurses opportunities to excel across four pillars: clinical, research, management and leadership.
- Nurses can undertake research one day, be clinical the next, or work as an educator or a leader.
- The breadth of experience gained in PICU supports pathways within PICU and stands nurses in good stead to move elsewhere.
Carli Whittaker, Head of Nursing, Children and Young People at the Royal College of Nursing, provides insights into the opportunities for a long-term nursing career in paediatric intensive care. She discusses the breadth of experience available within PICU and the ways nurses can contribute through clinical practice, research, education and leadership. The interview explores how these different roles can support professional development and open up varied career pathways, both within paediatric critical care and beyond. Carli also reflects on nursing's essential contribution to the multidisciplinary team and the range of skills that this setting enables nurses to develop.
This interview took place at the PCCS Annual Scientific Meeting 2026 in London.
Read the transcript
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. It may contain errors, so check it against the video before quoting.
It's always a privilege to be here. I'm representing nursing because it's such an important part of the multidisciplinary team. So from my perspective, I'm talking about is PICU a long-term career for nurses.
And actually, I think there's lots of opportunities for nurses to excel in PICUs and use all four pillars. So clinical, research, management, and leadership. And I think that's really important. It's probably one of the areas that nurses can actually use all of those skills most of the time. And it leads them to be able to undertake different pathways, not only within PICU but actually it stands them in good stead to move elsewhere if that's what they want to be.
So you can undertake research one day, you could be clinical the next or you could be an educator or a leader. And I think that's the breadth of experience that nurses can get in PICU and I think it's very unique.
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Cite this video
Carli Whittaker. “Building a long-term nursing career in PICU.” The Paediatric Video Journal, 7 November 2026. https://paediatricvj.com/videos/building-a-long-term-nursing-career-in-picu-whittaker/
This interview is educational content intended for healthcare professionals and is not medical advice. Views expressed are those of the speaker. © The Paediatric Video Journal. All rights reserved.