This research aimed to understand the care provided to the child during the immediate post-operative cardiac surgery according to the being-nurse's perception. The phenomenological interview was used with six nurses who work at the Thoracic Surgery Recovery Unit of Pronto-Socorro Cardiológico de Pernambuco, from March to May 2011. The research has a qualitative design and an approach based on Martin Heidegger's existential phenomenology. Data were produced and analyzed according to the four moments suggested by Martins and Bicudo. The analysis allowed delineating the nurse's care as systematic, complex and meticulous, requiring at the same time technical-scientific skills, demanding from the human being that provides care ability to tackle her feelings when facing the daily contingencies. We conclude that the care provided to the child is built with a constitutive dynamics between hard technologies and subjectivity, where there will be moments when one shall be appreciated in spite of the other.
Pediatric Nursing; Thoracic Surgery; Intensive Care; Nursing Care; Perception