Free Pediatric Nurse Job Description Templates
Free pediatric nurse job description templates: private practice, hospital, home health, school, and charge nurse. Download as DOCX.
Pediatric Nurse Job Description Templates
5 free templates: private practice, hospital, home health, school, and charge nurse. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
The pediatric nurse posting is written by two very different employers, and the templates online serve neither well. The first is a hospital with a recruiting department, differentials, and a residency program. The second is a private pediatric practice, two to five physicians, a clinical team, a front desk, no HR department, where the practice manager writes the posting between patient calls and the credential file becomes their problem the day the nurse starts. Most physicians in America still work in practices of ten doctors or fewer, and those practices hire nurses with a one-page generic template that never mentions the license verification, the PALS expiration date, or the one recruiting advantage they hold over every hospital in town: the schedule.
At FirstHR, we build for small teams that hire without an HR department, and the pediatric practice is that customer in a licensed profession: the posting has to carry the compliance structure a hospital HR office would otherwise provide. The five templates below cover the role the way employers actually staff it, the private practice version with the full compliance block as fill-in fields, hospital inpatient, home health private duty, school nursing, and the charge nurse who owns the compliance calendar. Fill in the brackets and post. For the general principles behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
What Does a Pediatric Nurse Do?
A pediatric nurse provides clinical care to infants, children, and adolescents: assessment and monitoring, immunizations and weight-based medications, family education and triage, and the documentation regulated clinical work runs on. Federal data does not track nursing specialties separately, so the occupational frame is the registered nurse occupation: roughly 3.4 million jobs, with hospitals employing the majority and ambulatory settings, physicians' offices included, the second-largest employer, and the O*NET profile covering the assessment, medication, and education work at the core of the role.
For the employer writing the posting, the setting is the first decision, because it changes the job, the schedule, and the applicant pool. A clinic nurse rooms patients, gives immunizations, and triages parent calls on weekday hours; a hospital nurse monitors inpatients on twelve-hour shifts with differentials; a home health nurse delivers one-on-one care to a medically complex child in a family's home; a school nurse runs a health office alone on the academic calendar. The five templates on this page are split along exactly those lines.
Pediatric Nurse Duties and Responsibilities
Pediatric nurse duties and responsibilities center on assessment and care, medications and immunizations, family education and triage, and the documentation and compliance work that pediatric practice legally carries. The setting shifts the weights, a clinic role is heavy on immunizations and phone triage, a hospital role on monitoring and medication safety, but the four categories hold across the specialty. These are the responsibilities grouped the way the templates use them.
A strong posting picks 8 to 12 duties from these categories and grounds them in your setting: the EHR by name, the state immunization registry, the triage protocols, the visit mix. Pediatric nurses read postings for those specifics because they reveal whether the clinical operation is run deliberately or improvised. For a structured way to scope any role before posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.
Practice vs Hospital vs Home Health vs School: Which Are You Staffing?
One specialty, four working lives. The schedule structure alone changes who applies, so map your setting before you pick a template.
| Factor | Private practice | Hospital | Home health | School |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule | Weekday clinic hours | 12-hour shifts, rotations | Shifts by case | Academic calendar |
| Core work | Visits, immunizations, triage | Inpatient monitoring | One-on-one complex care | Health office, chronic plans |
| Key certs | License, BLS; PALS preferred | License, BLS, PALS | License, BLS; PALS by acuity | License; state school cert |
| Systems | EHR, immunization registry | EHR, early warning scoring | Visit documentation for payers | Health records, IHPs |
| Pay structure | Hourly, ambulatory rates | Hourly + differentials | Hourly + acuity differentials | District scale |
| Who else is there | Providers and clinic team | Full unit and rapid response | The family | Usually no one clinical |
Two adjacent staffing decisions matter for practices. If the task list sits within a narrower licensed scope, the LPN templates describe that role at its honest level; if the gap is delegated clinical-plus-administrative support rather than nursing, the medical assistant templates fit better. Post the pediatric nurse role when the work genuinely requires the nursing license.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template by setting; the schedule, EHR, and pay go in the fields. All five share the same skeleton, setting context, four-category duties, the full compliance block, the license level decided deliberately, honest pay structure, but the daily work and the applicants differ enough that the matched version always reads more credibly to nurses who have worked the setting. Use this guide to choose.
5 Free Pediatric Nurse Job Description Templates
Download all five as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: setting context, duties across care, immunizations, family communication, and documentation, the compliance block as explicit fill-in fields, license, BLS/PALS, TB, Hep B, mandatory reporter, the schedule stated exactly, and pay with differentials where they apply. Fill in the brackets before you post.
Template 1: Private Practice / Clinic Pediatric Nurse
The small-practice version: rooming, immunizations, phone triage, parent education, the weekday schedule as the recruiting lever, and the full compliance block as fields.
Template 2: Hospital / Inpatient Pediatric Nurse
The acute-care version: early-warning monitoring, weight-based medication safety, family-centered care, and shifts with differentials stated plainly.
Template 3: Pediatric Home Health Nurse (Private Duty)
The one-on-one version: care per the plan for medically complex children, payer-grade documentation, and professional boundaries in a family home.
Template 4: School Nurse (School Setting)
The independent-practice version: the health office, chronic condition plans, staff delegation training, state screenings, and the academic calendar.
Template 5: Pediatric Charge Nurse / Lead
The leadership version: daily clinical flow, team scheduling and mentoring, and ownership of the compliance calendar.
Pediatric Nurse Requirements and Skills to Include
Pediatric nurse requirements should center on the license, the life-support certifications the setting demands, and the traits the specialty runs on, two-level communication, weight-based precision, calm with frightened children and parents, with specialty credentials like the CPN positioned as preferred rather than gates. The SHRM job description tools describe a good job description as a plain-language summary of a position's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and in a licensed specialty, plain language means stating the credential requirements as verifiable facts. The difference shows in how the bullets are written.
| Weak requirement | Strong requirement |
|---|---|
| Licensed nurse | Active, unencumbered [RN / LPN] license in [State], verified at hire and tracked for renewal |
| CPR certified | Current BLS required; PALS [required / preferred by setting], with expiration dates on file |
| Good with kids | Communicates at two levels at once: age-appropriate with the child, clear and calm with the parent |
| Detail-oriented | Verifies weight-based dosing on every medication and charts same-day in [EHR] |
| Pediatric experience required | ____ + years nursing experience; pediatric or ambulatory preferred, we train our workflows |
Keep the formal gate at the license level the work legally requires plus the certifications the setting demands, and keep every line job-related and neutral: the EEOC rules on job advertisements prohibit postings that express preferences based on protected characteristics, and the demands of pediatric work belong in the posting written as the job's demands, not a description of the person.
How to Write a Pediatric Nurse Job Description
A strong pediatric nurse posting takes about twenty minutes once you settle the setting, the license level, and the schedule story. Here is the process the templates are built around. If this is among your practice's first hires, the small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself.
Pediatric Nurse Salary
Federal data benchmarks the registered nurse occupation rather than pediatric nursing specifically, and within that band the setting drives the pay structure more than the specialty does. Anchor on the data, then price the schedule you are actually offering.
Within the band, the structures diverge: hospital pediatric roles build totals from base plus night, weekend, and holiday differentials; ambulatory and office roles trade lower base rates for weekday schedules; home health private duty varies with case acuity; school positions follow district scales on the academic year; and LPN-level roles price well below the RN benchmark, with the federal LPN median at $62,340. For a private practice the honest posting prices a competitive ambulatory hourly rate and sells the schedule as the headline, because in a market with 189,100 annual openings, the nurse reading your posting has a hospital offer to compare it against, and the schedule is the part of your offer the hospital cannot match.
Licenses, Certifications, and Reporting Duties
Three compliance lines belong in or behind every pediatric nurse posting. First, the license: nursing is state-licensed practice, scope rules differ between RN and LPN by state, and the license should be verified against the primary source, the national Nursys licensure verification system run by the state boards' council, at hire and tracked for renewal. Second, the occupational health items: healthcare workers with exposure to blood and body fluids fall under the federal OSHA bloodborne pathogens rules, which is where the Hep B vaccination offer and documentation requirements come from, alongside TB screening per policy; together with BLS and PALS expirations, these form the credential file that the practice, not the nurse, owns the audit risk for. The compliance onboarding guide covers building that file from day one.
Third, mandatory reporting: nurses are mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse and neglect in every state, with the specifics set by state law, the federal Child Welfare Information Gateway maintains the state-by-state landscape, and the obligation attaches the day the nurse starts, which is why the posting should name it and the onboarding should train it with completion recorded; the compliance training guide covers running that without a training department. The posting that carries all three lines as explicit fields is doing the work an HR department would otherwise do, which is precisely what a small practice needs from it.
Hiring a Pediatric Nurse for a Private Practice
Hospital systems hire pediatric nurses through recruiting departments with credentialing teams, residencies, and differentials. A private pediatric practice, and per the AMA's Physician Practice Benchmark Survey about a third of physicians still work in practices of fewer than five doctors, hires with a practice manager, a posting, and no HR department. Here is how to write the posting for that reality.
After You Hire: Onboarding a Pediatric Nurse
Pediatric nurse onboarding is credential management and clinical ramp running in parallel, and at a small practice both belong to whoever made the hire. The paperwork track is standard, the offer in writing, the I-9 with documents verified, the W-4 and state tax forms, and state new hire reporting per the new hire paperwork guide. The compliance track is the specialty's addition: primary-source license verification documented, BLS and PALS certificates collected with expirations entered into a tracked calendar, TB and Hep B status filed per policy, background checks where state law requires them for work with children, and mandatory reporter training assigned with completion recorded. The clinical track runs alongside: EHR and registry access, the immunization and vaccine-storage workflow, triage protocols, emergency drills, and supervised shifts before independent ones; the healthcare onboarding guide covers the full sequence.
The documents around the hire follow the usual sequence: the offer letter template for the acceptance step, the employee onboarding template for the first weeks, the training plan template for the protocols and competency ramp with due dates, and the employee handbook template for the policies, occupational health, reporting duties, scheduling, in writing. If the nurse hire is part of staffing the whole practice, the pediatrician templates follow the same structure as this set. FirstHR connects all of it, e-signature, the credential file with document storage, training assignments with completion records, and the onboarding checklist, in one place built for practices without an HR department.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a pediatric nurse do?
A pediatric nurse provides clinical care to infants, children, and adolescents, and the setting shapes the daily work. In a private practice or clinic, the rhythm is well visits and sick visits: rooming patients with vitals and growth measurements, administering immunizations per the schedule, assisting providers, handling phone triage from parents, and educating families. In a hospital, the work is inpatient: continuous assessment, early recognition of deterioration, weight-based medication administration with pediatric safety checks, and family-centered care at the bedside. Home health pediatric nurses deliver one-on-one private duty care to medically complex children; school nurses run the health office as the only clinician in the building. Across every setting, the distinguishing skill is communicating at two levels at once, the child and the worried adult who came with them, and the distinguishing duty is the documentation and mandatory reporting that pediatric work legally carries.
What are pediatric nurse duties and responsibilities?
Pediatric nurse duties fall into four areas. Assessment and care: rooming and assessing patients with age-appropriate techniques, monitoring for changes, recognizing deterioration early, and assisting providers with exams and procedures. Medications and immunizations: administering vaccines per the current schedule with proper storage and handling documentation, and verifying weight-based dosing on every medication, the pediatric-specific safety discipline that separates this specialty. Family education and triage: handling phone and portal triage by protocol, teaching parents about medications, home care, and warning signs, and supporting children through procedures. Documentation and compliance: accurate, same-day charting in the EHR, maintaining the personal credential file of license, BLS and PALS certifications, and screenings, and fulfilling mandatory reporter obligations that attach to the role under state law. The setting shifts the weights: a clinic role is heavy on immunizations and triage, a hospital role on monitoring and medication safety.
What is the difference between a pediatric RN, an LPN, and a medical assistant?
Scope of practice, set by state law. A pediatric registered nurse holds an RN license and practices the full nursing scope: independent assessment, telephone triage, care planning, and the broadest medication authority, which is why triage lines and charge roles require the RN. A licensed practical nurse practices under defined supervision with a narrower scope that varies by state: typically rooming, many medications and immunizations, and treatments within protocols, but generally not independent assessment or triage. A medical assistant is not a nurse and operates under different rules entirely, usually delegated clinical tasks under direct provider supervision alongside administrative work. For a small practice, the staffing decision is a task-mapping exercise: list what the role will actually do, check it against your state's scope rules, and post the license level the work requires, because posting an RN for LPN-scope work overpays every hour, and expecting LPN staff to run independent triage writes a scope violation into the schedule.
What should a pediatric nurse job description include?
A complete pediatric nurse job description includes the setting and team context, the practice size, the unit and bed count, or the case acuity, the schedule stated exactly, since weekday clinic hours are a private practice's strongest recruiting lever against hospital shift work, the duties across assessment and care, medications and immunizations, family communication and triage, and documentation, the EHR and any state immunization registry named, and the full compliance block written as explicit fields: active unencumbered RN or LPN license in the state, current BLS and PALS where required, TB screening and Hep B vaccination status per occupational health policy, and mandatory reporter obligations. Then the license level decided deliberately by state scope rules, the hourly range with any differentials, and an equal opportunity statement. The compliance block is what generic templates omit, and for a practice without an HR department it doubles as the credential checklist for the hire.
What certifications does a pediatric nurse need?
The legal foundation is the nursing license: an active, unencumbered RN or LPN license in the state of practice, verified against the primary source at hire and tracked for renewal. On top of the license, employers require current BLS certification essentially universally, and PALS, the pediatric advanced life support credential, is required in hospital and high-acuity settings and increasingly preferred in offices. The CPN, certified pediatric nurse, is a voluntary specialty credential that signals depth and belongs in postings as preferred rather than required. School nursing adds state-specific certification requirements in many states. Beyond certifications, the hire carries occupational health items: TB screening and Hep B vaccination status under the bloodborne pathogens rules, plus background checks where state law requires them for work with children. The practical employer takeaway: every item on this list has an expiration or renewal date, so the credential file needs an owner and a calendar from day one.
How much does a pediatric nurse make?
Federal data does not break out pediatric nursing separately, so the benchmark is the registered nurse occupation: a median annual wage of $93,600, about $45.00 per hour, as of May 2024, across roughly 3.4 million jobs, with employment projected to grow 5 percent over the decade and about 189,100 openings per year. Within that band, setting drives the structure more than specialty does: hospital roles add night and weekend differentials that push totals up, ambulatory and office roles typically pay lower base rates traded against weekday schedules, home health private duty pricing varies with case acuity and shift differentials, and school positions follow district scales with academic-year calendars. LPN-level roles price substantially below the RN benchmark, with the federal LPN median at $62,340. For a private practice, the honest play is a competitive ambulatory hourly rate plus the schedule stated as the headline, because that is the trade nurses leaving shift work are searching for.
How can a small pediatric practice compete with hospital pay?
By selling the trade hospitals cannot make. Hospital nursing pay is built on shift work: base rates plus night, weekend, and holiday differentials, twelve-hour shifts, rotating schedules, and high-acuity intensity. A private practice offers the inverse: weekday clinic hours, evenings and weekends at home, lower acuity, a small stable team, and continuity with families across years. Nurses move from hospital to ambulatory work for exactly this exchange, accepting a lower total number for a schedule that fits a life, and they screen postings for proof the schedule is real. So the practice posting should lead with the hours stated exactly, name the Saturday rotation honestly if one exists, price the hourly rate competitively within ambulatory norms rather than chasing hospital totals, and add what small practices uniquely offer: input into how the clinic runs, no floating to other units, and patients who know the nurse by name. The schedule is the compensation; write it like it.
What happens after I hire a pediatric nurse?
The standard paperwork comes first: the offer in writing, the I-9 with documents verified, the W-4 and state tax forms, and state new hire reporting. Then the compliance ramp that clinical work requires: primary-source license verification completed and documented, BLS and PALS certificates collected with expiration dates entered into a tracked calendar, TB screening and Hep B status documented per the occupational health policy, background checks where state law requires them, and mandatory reporter training assigned with completion recorded. The clinical ramp runs alongside: EHR access and training, the immunization workflow and vaccine storage procedures, triage protocols, emergency response drills, and supervised shifts before independent ones. The structural point for a small practice: every credential in the file has a renewal date, and the practice, not the nurse, owns the audit risk if one lapses. FirstHR handles the document collection with e-signature, stores the credential file, assigns training with due dates and completion records, and runs the onboarding checklist in one place, built for practices without an HR department.