Meet Melissa DiPiro, MSN, RN, CPNP-PC/AC

[Melissa DiPiro, MSN, RN, CPNP-PC/AC, Shriners Children's Boston]

I'm Melissa DiPiro, pediatric nurse practitioner here at Shriners Children's Boston. I knew from a very young age that I was going to go into health care and actually thought I was going to be a pediatric oncology nurse and then I realized quickly that that wasn't a field for me and started out in the NICU and knew that children was someplace that I always wanted to be with their resiliency and just their great attitude. Having been here for my entire nursing career and my education, I knew the moment I walked in the door it didn't feel like a hospital to me and when I had my very first interview I knew that I didn't want to leave. We work very collaboratively with the whole team and so as a nurse practitioner on the floor, I work with the nurses and the care management team and the rehab therapists to coordinate the care for the patient and their plans for the day. I work very closely with the surgeons and the PICU attendings with issues as they come up with the patient to make sure that they're appropriately treated and managed. I think I always encourage the parents to act as part of the care team. I always say that they know their child the best and they know when their child is in pain or uncomfortable and maybe the child is too scared to tell us so I make sure to involve the parents in that process as well, and make sure that they know that their child was a well child with an injury and at the end of all this we're going to send them home to be a well child again. I think definitely it's the kids and it’s seeing them at the end it’s seeing them when they come back six months later, and they ring the doorbell and they want to come up and say hi to everybody on the inpatient unit, even though we made them do some not so fun, really hard things during their stay here. They're excited to see us, they're excited to show us how their wounds have healed and you know, how many miles they've run or what fun things that they've done in the interim since we've last seen them.