Pediatric Nursing Careers at Nicklaus Children's:
Pediatric Nursing Careers at Nicklaus Children's: Magnet Nursing, Four Years on America's Top 100, and What the Work Is Really Like
Most nurses searching “pediatric nurse jobs in Miami” aren’t just comparing pay. They’re trying to answer a harder question: is there a children’s hospital where the care standards are high, the colleagues hold each other up, and nurses actually stay? Nicklaus Children’s is worth a close look because it has a track record on both sides. It’s a Magnet-designated hospital, and in 2025 it ranked #34 on America’s Top 100 Most Loved Workplaces®, its fourth consecutive year on the list.
What a Pediatric Nursing Career Actually Looks Like Day to Day
Pediatric nursing asks for clinical skill and a particular kind of patience. The patient is a child, the parents are in the room, and every update is a conversation with a family under stress. At Nicklaus, nurses are responsible for planning and delivering patient- and family-centered care, and the job descriptions say it directly: the hospital is looking for nurses who bring compassion and knowledge every day.
The work spans the full range of children’s care. Nicklaus nurses work in the NICU, emergency departments, inpatient units, urgent care centers and specialty programs including heart, cancer and blood disorders, orthopedics and neuroscience. Some work outside the hospital entirely, in school health clinics run with The Children’s Trust in Miami-Dade public schools. Roles run across the main Miami campus and locations in Broward County, including Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs, on day and night shifts.
That context matters before judging any claim about culture. Pediatric nursing is demanding everywhere. The honest question isn’t whether the work is hard; it’s whether the organization supports the people doing it.
The Nicklaus Model
Nicklaus Children’s Health System is anchored by Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami, a nonprofit, freestanding specialty hospital exclusively for children, with outpatient and urgent care locations across South Florida. Its mission is to inspire hope and promote lifelong health for the children and families it serves, and its recruiting line puts that in a nurse’s terms: be a child’s champion.
Three things define nursing there.
Magnet standards. Nicklaus Children’s Hospital has earned Magnet® recognition from the American Nurses Credentialing Center five consecutive times. Magnet designation recognizes nursing excellence and the conditions that support it, including nurses’ voice in decisions about their own practice.
Nursing leadership with a national profile. Chief Nursing Officer Shannon Odell was named to the Top 50 Women Chief Nursing Officers list in 2025, her second consecutive year.
Clinical quality nurses can point to. Nicklaus is ranked among the nation’s top 50 children’s hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for 2025–26, with seven ranked specialty programs, the most of any children’s hospital in South Florida. It has also been named a Top Children’s Hospital by The Leapfrog Group for quality and safety four years running.
Growth and Development
For new nurses, the most important structure is the first year. Nicklaus’s practice transition program, which helps new graduates move from school to independent practice, is accredited with distinction by the American Nurses Credentialing Center. That accreditation is one of the more meaningful things a new pediatric nurse can look for, because it means the program itself has been reviewed against national standards.
For experienced nurses, the path runs through specialty units and into leadership. Nicklaus posts nurse manager roles for units like the NICU, and the breadth of its specialty programs means a nurse can build deep expertise without leaving the system. In its own words, Nicklaus is committed to a culture in which employee development and recognition are always a priority.
The Culture Nurses Describe
Nicklaus’s employees answered the culture question in its Most Loved Workplace® survey: across 1,011 responses, they gave it a SPARK score of 87.1 and an employee Net Promoter Score of +70.5. That eNPS means the share of employees who would recommend Nicklaus as a place to work outnumbers those who wouldn’t by more than 70 points.
The recognition record backs that up. Nicklaus has been on America’s Most Loved Workplaces® list every year since 2022: in the Top 100 in 2022, #41 in 2023 as the highest-ranked health system on the list, #59 on the expanded Top 200 in 2024, and #34 in 2025.
It also shows in how the hospital recognizes its people. Nicklaus runs a recognition program in which families identify staff members who made a difference, which embeds service in the culture and gives nurses credit from the people they care for. Its careers site puts the experience simply: at Nicklaus, your colleagues make you feel welcomed.
Worth being direct here: pediatric hospital nursing involves nights, weekends and hard days, and no recognition list changes that. What a nurse can evaluate is how a unit handles those days. A four-year record on the Most Loved Workplace® list, built on employee survey data, is a strong signal that Nicklaus handles them well.
Benefits and Total Rewards, Told Straight
One detail stands out for nurses: at Nicklaus, part-time and full-time employees receive the same benefits package. For nurses who want a part-time schedule, that’s worth knowing early.
Nicklaus CEO Matthew A. Love has described the organization’s commitment as “caring for the caregivers,” with benefits and a supportive culture to match. Candidates should ask for the full benefits summary for their role and schedule.
How to Start a Pediatric Nursing Career at Nicklaus
For any nurse weighing Nicklaus against other hospitals, three questions are worth asking directly: what does orientation look like on this unit, how are staffing and nights handled, and where have nurses on this unit moved after a few years? A Magnet hospital with an accredited transition program should have specific answers to all three.
Nicklaus hires registered nurses, LPNs, emergency and patient care technicians, and nurse leaders across its Miami and Broward locations. Explore open roles on Nicklaus’s CertCheck profile, or see the full certified employer profile for more on Nicklaus’s Most Loved Workplace® recognition. To hear how Nicklaus’s CEO thinks about culture, listen to Matthew A. Love on the Most Loved Workplace® podcast.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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