Like most nurses in pediatric care, Tony Jordan, RN, CCRN, loves working with children and their families. However, as a nurse in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, he considered his job rather routine.

"I was looking for something outside the ordinary. Being a pediatric critical care nurse is it for me," Jordan said.

Each week, Jordan works three 12-hour shifts at Children's, two in the pediatric ICU. His third weekly shift is often spent on the transport side, triaging calls from other health care institutions and putting together transport teams to move critically ill children to Children's. Some days they may staff a "bus" or "truck" (ambulance) or they may fly a fixed-wing plane to pick up a child and parents.

The transport team can include a nurse, therapist and paramedics, or just paramedics.

"When we walk in, we do our own assessments, working as a team," Jordan said. "The paramedics do their visual assessment, the therapist may check an airway status while the nurse talks with the parents to get a medical history."

A pediatric critical care nurse - especially one who does patient transport - must have excellent assessment skills. "By the time we're called in, it is probably a life-or-death situation," Jordan said.

He also interfaces with parents who may be facing the loss of their child.

"The emotions of a family are higher when there are children at stake," he said. "We must be able to reassure them, have empathy and be able to calm them down."

Being a pediatric critical care nurse/transport nurse requires several years of training and the ability to handle people and tough situations. Additional training is required to become part of a transport team.

The average starting salary is around $50,000 annually, depending on experience.